Yep, another heart post! Tomorrow will be Tot School, so don’t get too disappointed. 😉
When I was 7 years old I went into complete heart block. Basically, what that means is that the top chambers of my heart (the atria) no longer “talk” to the bottom chambers (the ventricles). So my heart was no longer beating correctly. So I had my second surgery (first was the shunt at 5 years old) to get a pacemaker implanted. I remember it was a “Cordis DDD pacemaker” whatever that meant. There were two wires, one for the top chambers, and one for the bottom. The pacemaker would “hear” the rhythm of my atria and relay the message to beat to the ventricles. At least, that’s the way it was explained to me.
I have lots of memories associated to my first pacemaker. When I was in the hospital I met a boy that was one year younger than me. His name was Lee. And we became fast friends. His parents would frequently have to come looking for him as he’d disappear into my hospital room. We played paper dolls together. I’m sure we played other things, but that’s what I remember most.
The other thing I distinctly remember is that he was in to get not his first pacemaker, but his second. Or maybe it was just the leads he was having replaced. Our cardiologist, Dr. Massin (yes, Lee was another “heart kid” that he kept), said that he’d been doing belly flops on the concrete and broke his leads. This freaked me out. I know now that it was a joke, but in my seven year old brain I took it pretty seriously. I couldn’t imagine anyone actually doing belly flops on concrete on purpose, so I suppose my mind rationalized things and imagined that Lee had fallen from his bike and landed on his belly (where our pacemakers were placed). I refused to ride my bike for the next 2 years. You know that old saying about never forgetting how to ride a bike? Not true. I totally forgot and had to relearn. Perhaps it was because I was so young, but I felt pretty foolish at 9 years old relearning. Oh, well. I never broke a lead!
Lee’s parents were fun people. Mom, of course, kept up with them. I remember her telling me they both went to clown school. I thought that was so weird, but cool. And I still remember standing in my mom’s bedroom when she shared with me the news that Lee had died. My second run with survivor’s guilt. And another opportunity to be terrified. I’d thought that a pacemaker would stop people from dying. After all, it keeps the heart beating and it’s when your heart stops that you die, right? I didn’t understand how Lee could die if he had a pacemaker. His death haunted me for a long time. Now, I’m just glad I got to know him while he was here.
If you haven’t already, please check out my post about a special fundraiser I’ve been participating in this month and consider donating to the AHA.
Heart Journey Weblog 