Bionic Woman

Okay, I know that many of you who read my blog are WAY too young to know what the heck I am talking about! Back in the seventies or so, there was a show called the Bionic Woman. She had "bionic" parts, like her hearing and other things; it's rather vague in my mind because I was 10 at the most in the seventies. :-)
So I am a bionic woman because I got my new pacemaker on Tuesday! Here's a pic of me I took of myself with my phone. I'm a dork, I know. LOL



Here's how the surgery went, I'll tell on myself.
The doctors came into my room and talked to me and Winston about my surgery. They were rather grim, because they were not sure of the best option. One option was to just change the pacemaker itself and that's it. That would be okay but one of the wires I have in my heart isn't conducting as well as it should. Instead of 7 mHz, it was only transmitting 2mHz (I think it was mHz).
Another option would be to extract one of the leads from my heart and put in a new one. The problem is, I have 4 wires or leads, in my heart right now. They said that the vein they had them in was occluded. Four wires in one vein is too much and there is no room left for even much blood to flow through. Two wires have been in there for 20 years and then they were recalled. So they put in two more leads about ten years ago. The bad thing is, by removing a wire that has been in the heart for that long cannot be removed without significant risk. They had another O.R. waiting in case I began to bleed out and they had to cut my chest open. Whew! While we were talking about all this, Winston got a phone call from Jordan, a guy who works on our farm and has become family to us. Anyhow, he took the call! The doctors stopped talking about it and just looked at me-- they put their hands up in the air as if to say "what the heck?". We laughed and when Winston got off the phone, we decided. We told the doctors to evaluated once they got in the surgery to see if they felt the 'bad wire' could conduct enough shock to keep me going. Hopefully I will not need to replace them before my next pacemaker, which should be in about 10 years.

Once I was in the O.R., the team had been assembled. There were about 8 all together. They gave me oxygen, put on my EKG electrodes, and the large pads on my chest and back that can shock you if you go into cardiac arrest. (These pads are like 4x7 inches). One of the nurses yells to me across the room, "Honey, how much do you weigh?". Keep in mind there are like 8 people in the room! I said to her in a joking voice, "Oh, well I can't tell you until you give me an intercom. I think 8 people in the room is not a large enough audience, I should announce it to the whole hospital!" They all got a good chuckle.
They administered the sedative in my I.V. and I began to get sleepy; I saw the cardiac monitors doing a little dance. It was taking effect. I said "okay.... goodnight. My monitors are dancing around, so I think I'm on my way out. See you on the flip side". Again, a chuckle, and the next thing I know, I'm in recovery with my husband at my side. :-)

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