The Pacemaker

In late October or early November 2006 I had to get a pacemaker implanted. I have epilepsy and have had every kind of seizure that there is at one time or another. When I began passing out my wife and I just thought it was a type seizure that I hadn't had before. We talked to my neurologist about it several times from the time it began happening. Then in the summer of 2006 he told me that he wanted me to see a cardiologist and made me an appointment. I went in for the first office visit and he set up a stress test for a couple of weeks later. I passed that test; although, I honestly didn't think I was going to. He told me that if I passed it he had one other test he would do on the same day that would find the problem if I did have heart problems.

After passing the stress test, someone took me in another room and strapped me onto a stand of some sort. They tilted it at about a 45 degree angle and said that they would be back in a few minutes. My head was free, so I began looking around but don't remember anything that was in the room at that time. When those people came back in a few minutes my head was strapped down too, and all I could do was look straight ahead now.

After a couple of minutes different people began asking me questions about how I felt. I felt fine and told them that I did. I felt like I had been strapped in there for an hour or more and was thinking that nothing was going to happen so they could just take me down so I could go home. I never have liked going to doctors; although, I did trust this one from the first time I saw him a couple of weeks earlier and knew that personally I would like him and as a doctor but still wouldn't like having to make doctor visits to him just like I didn't any other doctor. About the time that all this ran through my mind one of the ladies there that later I learned is his nurse practitioner and can write prescriptions just like the doctor can. I answered her question as best as I could but I guess something didn't sound right to the doctor, because he asked me, "Do you feel like you're about to pass out?" I didn't until he asked me the question or at least I didn't realize I felt that way but as soon as he asked me the question, I knew that I would be out cold any second if something wasn't done and I mean quickly. I told Dr DeBruyn that I did feel like I would pass out anytime now. They took me down off that stand and so far as I can remember I never did pass out completely. I don't drive anymore unless it is an emergency because my epilepsy got so bad that I had to go on disability back in 1990, so after the appointment was over I waited on my wife to come pick me up and told her that I do have heart problems.

In a few days I got a phone call to come to the hospital. Whoever I was talking to said, "Don't take time to get any extra clothes just get someone to bring you and come right now." I replied that no one else was home right then, but I would come as soon as possible. She told me not to hesitate it was very important to get there right away. I called my wife at work and told her that they wanted me to come to the hospital. She asked me who did, and I replied that whoever called me a few minutes earlier. She wanted to know when was I supposed to be there I answered that too, and she came home and took me down there. They got me checked in and I think it was the next day that I got my pace maker. Everything went great during the surgery. I was taken to the operating room. There two people were waiting. They were talking and in a few minutes one of them said, "Should we go ahead and prep him?" The other replied that he didn't know which side the doctor was going to put the pacemaker on. I replied, "The right." He asked me what made me think it would be on the right, so I told him about another implant I had gotten a few years earlier and that it had gotten infected. I told him that I almost died from that infection. The man said, "You are right. It will be on the right side."

They shaved the area and cleaned it then gave me the shot to put me to sleep. (Sorry, I can never remember the name of that drug. At least they don't use ether anymore. Ether always made me sick as a dog when I was little and had to take it for some reason.) Anyway I woke up sometime later, I don't remember how long in the hallway outside the OR. Whoever took me out there said she would be back in a few minutes to take me to the recovery room. She went back inside the OR for a few minutes then came back and was going to take me in the recovery room, but I was doing so well that she decided to take me straight back to my room instead. If I remember correctly and I'm pretty sure that I do, she said that I was the only person she had ever taken straight back to the room after having a pacemaker implanted.