Some Sick Humor

So, just real quick, for my own future benefit than anything, I’m giving a health update. You are welcome to listen in, but I’m mostly putting this out there so that, in nine years or so, when I get another pacemaker, I can look back and go aha, yes, I remember that. 

Last post and the post before that was health related, and you are welcome to catch up there if you have no idea what I’m talking about.

The struggle is still real. But not as real as it was when I wrote the last post. For that, I am grateful, and we are just praying that my body eventually heals, and I am specifically praying that it will get a move on with that. Heh!

I spent about 45 minutes with the cardiologist and the pacemaker tech who was present for the surgery. Pacemaker techs are the guys who program pacemakers, check the batteries, etc. In other words, they determine whether I live or die. Heh!

Turns out there’s a fancy smancy new feature on this shiny new pacemaker that, for whatever reason, my heart doesn’t like. There’s no reason for my heart to not like this “backup feature”, as they call it, but it’s like I asked the doc. Since when has my body ever been predictable, or even understandable? Not often. And so, with some gentle prodding from me, with respect to that unpredictability, the pacemaker tech turned said backup feature off. He said I don’t neeeeeeed the feature, so it was worth a try to nix it and see what happens.

What happened was that I left the office twenty minutes later already feeling a reprieve from the lightheadedness I’d been experiencing since surgery. Hours later, it was apparent that I would also get a reprieve from the electrical shocks I was feeling from the new lead. However, the reprieve has not been as complete as I’d like. The shocks are not as strong, nor as often, but they still happen. And the faintness, lightheadedness, and PVC’s (flip-floppy heart) do creep in whenever that goes on. So – while I am well-er, and thankful to be well-er, I am not entirely well.

I’ve been instructed to wait a month, in the hopes that what needs to happen is some healing within the heart. In all honesty, if I was a heart, I would not appreciate having a lead unscrewed from me, and a new lead screwed back into me in a different location, all so I could get zapped into beating because the top and bottom part of me do not speak to one another and I am not strong enough to beat on my own. These things are not natural, and as swell as pacemakers are, the fact is, a body is not meant to have foreign objects implanted into them.

Iron Man and I – we know this.

Wish my device glowed like that ….

Except mine would be about level with Shaun’s belly button, and somehow, that just doesn’t seem near as sexy as what Iron Man and Pepper got going’ on. Heh!

So the plan. Let’s talk about the plan. The plan is this: hurry up and wait. Sleep as much as I need. Don’t overwork the heart. And refrain from singing and emotional stress. I have no scientific explanation for why I cannot sing or have certain types of emotional stress. I only know that if I experience either, I come close to fainting. Or at the very least, I get lightheaded, dizzy, and completely out of breath, and that’s just not conducive to the sober-minded, sober-bodied persona a pastor’s wife should put out.

I’m not drunk, people. Just naturally tipsy! Heh!

So, other than the too-disgusting-to-talk-about digestive news I’m experiencing, that’s it. And by the unamused look on Todd’s face, I don’t think we want to dive into the poo. Suffice it to say, antibiotics don’t agree with me, and neither do pain meds (except for up to four very, very sweet hours after I take them).

This concludes your session with the little old lady who, as of late, can’t seem to discuss anything but her ticker and BM’s. You’re welcome, and I’m a little bit sorry. But not a lot.

Heh!

It’s been fun, and hopefully funny. But in all the fun, I hope you remember this saying by Erma Bombeck:

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt. 

I do still covet your prayers.