Living With A Pacemaker

As a retired Healthy 73 year old, I have been a runner for over 40 years and of recent years slowed to a walk at the advice of others in my age bracket and older.

Just returned from my overseas winter stay in the country of Anguilla and on this day of March 6, 2008 was a typical day for me.
Up at 5:00 AM off to a meeting and by 10:00 AM called my wife and asked her to join me for some shopping. We shopped for a short time, went home and I planned to take a nap for about 90 mins, get up take the dog for a walk and do some community service work in our development area of 275 homes.

I woke up feeling normal at 1:30 PM, got dressed and noticed that my heart was pounding slightly. My normal heart rate (HR) is 44 at rest from years of exercise. However, just waking from a nap, I was shocked to feel an accelerated heart pace. After getting dressed, I laid back on the bed to see if the heart would slow down. It did not. Next, I asked my wife for the household blood pressure unit to see my determine my HR. The batteries were dead as it had not been used for some time. At 2:30 PM, I told my wife that I would go to the local Fire House up the road about three miles. While there, they asked the routine questions about pain in arm, chest, and feeling of dizziness No, to all of this, no pain, no abnormal feeling of any kind. The Medic put the wires on me and proceeded with the testing. I was tested in the sitting position and the Medic said, “Let’s try this while you stand”. I stood up and he ran his test again. I asked him, “What is my HR.” He replied, it is 120 and he looked at me and said, “We need to go to the emergency room (ER). I said, “Let’s go, my car is parked out back, locked up and I have the keys, let go!

We arrived at the local hospital at about 3:30 PM. Again, vitals were tested non stop and I noted that my HR was now 140.
I did not have a feeling of fear of any degree. This same thing happened to me just 30 years ago and I went to the same hospital ER during the Blizzard of 1978.

Background on Prior Episode of increased HR:
To make a long story short, they said at that time that my high HR was due to drinking too much coffee during the boredom of the Blizzard. I do not drink much coffee and on this day, I drank five or more cups. Their answer sounded logical to me. I was released at 4:00 Am, was told to watch the coffee. I have as I said, I do not drink more than 1 to 1 1/2 cups on any day, prior or since. No more reoccurrences until March 6, 2008.

Back to the present problem. By 5:00 PM, I told the ER Doctor that I am regular with my bowel movement (BM) and would need to be relieved in an hour or so. By 7:15 PM I had a bowel movement and with the wires still on, I observed the HR of 140 drop to 37 and start to level off. This happened within 5 mins of the BM. I had a feeling that the BM would cause a reaction of some kind and maybe it would be positive. I recall several years ago taking my wife to the ER with a HR in excess of 200. While undergoing testing, she removed her wool sweater and it tickled her nose enough to promote a SNEEZE. As she sneezed, her HR dropped immediately to her normal HR.

So, it followed that I was expecting some type of reaction and was happy to see the positive result. Shortly thereafter, I was admitted to a room for further evaluation. After monitoring me for balance of March 6, I stayed on and more test were run including ultrasound of the heart. I was told that my heart looked very good but we still need to determine the corrective action to be taken for the unexpected HR increase. By Saturday morning, I met with my Primary Doctor (PD) and Cardiologist and we discussed the implantation of a PACE MAKER (PM)

Few things in life shock me. However, I was shocked to hear this but I believed it was a necessity in my case at this time. PM implantation was scheduled for 7:30 AM Monday, March 10, 08. I was awakened early to run the more minor test and then on to surgery. We arrived at 7:35 AM in the operating room, I was killing a shot to numb the insertion area, otherwise, I was awake during this time.

Prep time was about 25 mins, implantation was about 18 mins, deprep was about 15 mins. Finally, the doctor said, “how do you feel?” I replied that I felt great. At this time, he displayed the monitor for me to view where I could see the PM in my left upper breast area and the two wires going to my heart. I was pleased and overwhelmed to say the least. Next, I was taken to recovery and immediately given a breakfast. The surgeon talked with me for a few mins and said, I will call your PD and with her OK, you can go home after instructions.

Overall, I felt NO PAIN prior to the incident, during, or after the implantation. Now, over two weeks have passed and I have been very careful and followed the instructions word for word. Again, no pain occurred during the two weeks. However, after two weeks, I do feel a SLIGHT pain in the area of the PM. The pain is about a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. I assume that this is healing taking place and my body accepting this new addition within me.

I will end this writing at this time and continue later as it relates to the inception of Coumadin into my system. Coumadin appears to be a subject area within itself. More Later.
Bill