I think that I am about ready to rejoin the human race again, and I am doing well in learning to accommodate the pacemaker, until it is all healed and I can resume normal activities. They had my left arm velcroed to my body while I was in the hospital, and said that I have to sleep with it that way for at least the next month, maybe longer, so that I don’t raise my arm over my head at night when I am sleeping. During the day, I can take it off, but I have to do most things pretty much with my right hand. And if it is something that needs both hands, then I have to ask Bobby to do it for me. When they did the stress test, it showed some kind of anomaly in the results, so my doctor ordered a heart catheter scan before they did the pacemaker. It has been 6-7 years since I have had one of those, and the last time, it showed that my arteries were clean, but he wanted to make sure that everything was okay before proceeding with the pacemaker procedure; so I was taken from one procedure to the other, and totally exhausted (and FREEZING) afterwards. I didn’t need any of the pain meds they gave me , so except for some soreness and the incision being tender to touch, everything seems to be healing fine, and I had my first check-up last week. I have been making the pineapple/yogurt/spinach green smoothies every day. Pineapple is one of the best natural anti-inflammatories that there is, and since they loaded me up with antibiotics, I know that I need some yogurt or probiotics for a while to get everything working good again in my digestive system. I still tire easily, but my heart is beating along fine at the 60 bpm that it is supposed to do at rest, instead of the slow rate that it was doing before. Thank you all, for all of the prayers, and good thoughts that you sent !
It's so good to hear from you, @Yvonne Smith. I'm happy that the procedures went smoothly and it sounds like you are doing well. Be sure to milk it as long as you can...keep Bobby hoppin'!!
He is totally the very BEST husband in the whole world, and even if I am not asking, he always looks after me. God truly blessed me with that man ! (Although , I will admit to like having a special reason to hold hands more often than usual now...)
I was looking at my iPhone Apple Health app this morning, and one of the charts shows my resting heart rate. Before the pacemaker, it was sometimes dropping into the low 40’s and high 30’s, which is way too slow, so the pacemaker is to keep it at around 60 and above. This picture is the chart for the last month, and you can really see the difference in how my resting heartbeat is since the pacemaker and before I got it.
My pulse rate averages between 56 and 64. A far cry from what it ran when I was younger. I'd have sudden bouts of tachycardia for no apparent reason which we later attributed to the onset of my cardiomyopathy. Yours is looking great, Yvonne.
Yvonne--how weird, but I had my stress test today and a couple of the electrodes left raw patches on my skin. Not all of them, but the two that were placed highest on my chest. I hadn't really noticed them until I went in to take a bath; the warm bathwater stung them exactly like burns. Very odd. I assume they will resolve in a day or two. Did your doctor say what might have caused that?
When they did the chemical stress test, they could not get the machine to transmit, so they kept taking off the electrodes, washing with (alcohol ?), and then used something that felt like sandpaper to make my skin rougher, so my whole chest burned afterwards. When I got home and looked in the mirror I was able to see the outline of several of the electrodes. I went to my doctor’s office with a picture, and she said that it was probably the adhesive for the electrodes, which seems strange to me. Every single time I go to the cardiologist, the first thing that they do is an EKG, and those never ever have made me sore at all, let alone leave big round red marks and take the skin off. Maybe it is a different kind of adhesive, but it seemed like burns to me, too, @Beth Gallagher .
Yes, I suppose it probably was the adhesive, pulling the top layer of skin off. I forget that my skin is drier and thinner than it was in my youth.