in which I explain about the state of my health
especially the boom boom boom of my heart
to any who care.
Well, not so much boom boom boom any more...closer to kerflufflebzzt kerflufflebzzt kerflufflebzzt. I have a list of unfixed maintenance problems (biology is a piss poor design all ‘round) including diabetes, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and COPD. Oh wait, those last three are the same thing. Cardiomyopathy, congestive heart failure, and coronary artery disease are where I am now, according to my cardiologist. He says that I MUST have had many heart attacks in the past, though if I have I knew nothing of it. He says there is no other way the entire heart muscle could possibly have as much scar tissue on it as mine. In a fairly healthy heart, coronary bypass surgery and or angioplasty can help a lot. In my case, doc says that even if had either of those done, the suddenly increased blood flow through the heart would cause it to completely fail because it is so weak and damaged. There is nothing that will make the heart any better, short of a transplant.
My ejection fraction (EF) (I promise this is not sex related) is staying around 15% -20%. This refers to the amount of blood the heart is pushing through itself. It’s not quite as bad as it sounds because even a perfectly healthy heart has an EF of about 55% -70%.
In 2008 I had one of these internal defibrillators installed in my chest. This acts just like those paddles a person grabs in a medical show and yells “CLEAR" and shocks the poop out of the patient, only the internal ones are much smaller and work 24/7 permanently. Apparently there was little or no activity from it, other than the monitoring, until this year. It saved my life in March and again last month. My heart went into defib (I’m not sure whether mine is atrial or ventrical though I think the former) which means the heart stops beating normally and starts jittering about like a terrified jellyfish. This is a kind of arrhythmia (note the illustration of the installed defibrillator).
The device requires being connected to a land line phone and regularly sends status reports to the doc. When my arrhythmia happened in March I was precisely halfway between a standing and a sitting position, in the process of sitting down on the couch. I went out, quite literally like a light, pitched forward and sent my computer monitor and its makeshift stand crashing to the floor. I crashed with it of course. The next awareness I had was of lying on my back on the floor, wondering what I was doing there and Melinda standing over me shouting my name as though she were in the next county. The device worked, though it simply didn’t occur to either of us at the time that this is what had happened. I didn’t feel anything. I just got up and went about doing as I was before. We didn’t learn that this is what happened till May when it went off again.
This time I was sleeping. It went off once and apparently had no effect so it ramped up the voltage I guess and shocked again. I still was not really aware of feeling anything but it did wake me up and I had an odd taste in my mouth. I was wearing my CPAP mask (cannot sleep at all without that) and Melinda said I screamed like someone was skinning a cat alive. Given that rather negative review of my sleep-singing skills, I decided to call doc’s office and see if the jumper cables activated. The PA said, “YES! Get thee to a nunnery...er, ER NOW!” So Melinda hauled me over there.
They kept me in a room 2.5 days, did another heart cath and charged me about 17,000 dollars, which, I must say, seems a bit steep even for having a couple of pretty women shave me pubes (though that did beat the hell out of 6 foot 5 Bubba who did it the last time I had one). Hey, I’ve stayed in the CNN Plaza Hotel in Atlanta and it was only about a hundred per night and way more comfy with better room service (not to mention the little bar fridge in the room). Even if I had ordered some pube shavers I think it wouldn’t have been so much.
So, in one sense I have died twice this year so far. When my heart goes fib, apparently the blood flow to the brain, or at least to the “conscious” parts, is instantly stopped and I am instantly turned off. The defibrillator turns me back on again (so far). Were it not for that little device I would be permanently dead now because where we are, there’s no way in hell an ambulance or EMTs would get here in time to save me with their portable defib.
In a few days, a bill arrived aimed at giving most normal people a heart attack...as follows:
cor care post ccu 2.................................3100.00
pharmacy general 14.............................. 841.00
m/s supply general 5.............................. 772.45
m/s supply sterile supply ....................... 172.70
laboratory general 5............................... 170.90
laboratory chemistry 8........................... 703.60
lab hematology 4................................... 286.05
radiology diag chest xray....................... 186.50
respiratory svc general 3........................ 265.20
emergency room general........................1028.65
cardiology cardiac cath..........................8982.60
drug spec id detail coding 5................... 321.50
drug self adminsterable 40..................... 233.00
ekg/ecg general..................................... 131.60
Total charges.......................................17195.85
Luckily, such things do not faze me...add another billion to the bill, what do I care, I ain’t paying a dime of it either way. I’m still miffed I didn’t get any milk with my meals too.
TRB
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