I left for Bama nearly a month ago.
Road tripped for three days with my bestie.
Started work a few days later.
It feels like it's been way, way longer.
Let me rewind a quick second.
I have a congenital heart defect that requires I have an implanted cardiac defibrillator. You know those paddle things hospitals use where everyone has to clear? I have one inside of me because I run an elevated risk of going into cardiac arrest and I need protection.
Well, during the days after I left my last job. The days of packing, goodbyes, and finalizing logistics with my movers, I began to hear a soft little noise.
5:40am.
11:40am.
5:40pm.
11:40 again.
Beep....beep....beep...
Every six hours, 17 soft little beeps, audible enough to be overheard by anyone sitting close to me, would make itself knows.
I first noticed it on a Thursday evening and I wasn't sure if it was what I thought it was. My device has only been inside me for five years, I was told that it should last about ten. So it wasn't until the next night when I heard it again, this time in a different room, that I knew I had to get it checked out.
Problem #1: It was the weekend so I'd have to wait until Monday
Problem #2: I was set to leave for my new life that Tuesday
But it's my heart, right? I knew I had to get it checked out and also knew that it was likely that I'd have to get my ICD replaced in a few months. So on Monday afternoon, after packing my last box and running my last load to the thrift store, I popped by my cardiologist's office to have my device interrogated. 5 minutes, typically. An in-and-out visit that would run me $300 but priceless in peace of mind.
The nurses were chatty. I told them what I heard and they made the same assumption that I had. The put the magnifying-glass looking receiver over my left breast and powered the monitor up. A large yellow warning appeared on the screen and someone immediately left to get the supervisor on staff.
Turns out my ICD was 100% dead. So much so, the monitor couldn't access the data in my device. They could only read and print out one thing - the device wouldn't deliver a life-saving shock if my heart went into tachycardia.
They recommended surgery the next day.
You know, the day I was supposed to be setting off on a cross-country road trip to start a new life in the South.
I declined the surgery, much to the dismay of my health care team. Mostly because it would throw off my entire moving timeline and I didn't have the time or capacity to calculate how far reaching the impact would be. Partly because my COBRA paperwork hadn't come in. Fractionally because I was incredibly frustrated and furious at the poor timing and it was easier to push pause and deal with it later.
So I promised my nurses to be little more than sedentary until I was able to meet with a cardiologist in Birmingham. I set off on my trip as normal and had an appointment scheduled to meet with a highly regarded elctrophysiologist the day after my arrival.
Long story short(er): I underwent surgery a week after arriving in town where they discovered that my device was not only dead but the lead that attached the ICD to my heart was stripped of its protective sheath and severed in half. Suddenly the little zaps I had been experiencing every few months for the past few years made sense -- I had just assumed that it was my nervous system malfunctioning when really it was the electricity of the wire ends coming together.
The doctors at UAB gave me a new lead, a new device, and a new discovery that I am highly allergic to DermaBond.
Needless to say, my settling in didn't work out quite the way I had expected. I was highly motivated to unpack my house within days of receiving the movers. My mom came for a visit where we mostly stayed at home watching the first season of Pretty Little Liars but managed to have a few outings for meals and pedicures.
My blogging went by the wayside, although I'm certain a few percocet-fueled posts would have been good for a laugh.
Regardless, this is the reason for the delay in the posts I had promised. Stay tuned for posts of mine and Juddzee's road trip as well as my (nearly) complete apartment and office.
Edit: thank you to everyone for expressing concern about my health. Let me assure everyone that I'm feeling perfectly fine. The procedure was successful and I didn't even need to spend the night in the hospital. I'm healing fine aside from a strong external reaction to the glue they used to hold my incisions together. No heavy lifting or exercise for several weeks but otherwise, I'm happy and healthy. :)
