The next appointment left me feeling somewhat uneasy. Since the 'interrogation' and the change of pills, my blood pressure had been unusually high, giving rise to my earlier feeling that fixing one problem might be exacerbating another. Strangely, though, when the doctor took my blood pressure, it was very low. We did a brief EKG--amazing how quickly the nurse sticks these sensors on about ten places, switches the machine on for a minute or so, and then whips all the things off again--taking generous portions of chest hair with them. The EKG that I had on this occasion gave rise to the comment that I still have a minor amount of a-rhythmia--a finding that does not exactly cheer me up.
The appointment led to yet another change in medicines. And that was that. "Call me from England if you have a problem. See you in three months' time."
Tomorrow we go to England. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will not have any further problem while we are there.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Pills, Pills, and more Pills.
About a week ago I had two appointments--one with the cardiologist and one with a pleasant young lady--a technician from St. Jude Medical--who performed the much-heralded "interrogation." This was a non-event, totally unexciting, taking all of five minutes. I took my shirt off, and she draped a wire with some sort of sensor around the back of my neck so that it hung down over the bump of my pulse generator: sorry--I should say 'pacemaker' as you may not be one of the cognoscenti. The sensor was connected to a printer/reader device that spewed out a long roll of paper that would be reviewed by the cardiologist. "But don't expect to hear from him as I can see that everything is working perfectly," said the technician. End of interrogation, except for--"fix an appointment for a further check in three months time."
The appointment with the cardiologist was less satisfactory as he decided to change my pill regime. In addition to the blood thinner (Pradaxa--the hugely expensive drug at $750 for three months' supply), he prescribed a beta blocker (Micardis), the function of which is not clear to me. He also changed my blood pressure medication to something called Multaq (sounds like a Taliban leader) and annoyingly it has to be taken twice a day. So now I have to take three pills first thing in the morning and two pills at night. The pill-taking is all getting to be a bit too much. Mornings are not so bad, but I do tend to forget in the evening, and sometimes before I fall asleep I suddenly remember I have not taken the required two pills. It's not so bad if we are home in the evening and I can take them with our meal; but if we go out to eat or travel it is only too easy to forget. And just the fact that I have this pill regime is a constant reminder to me that all is not well
The cardiologist did emphasize that I should return to my usual exercise regime, and I have started to do so, getting back to my routine of treadmill, bicycle, and elliptical trainer for 40 minutes or so each morning. I cannot lift weights as my shoulder hurts if I attempt anything more than a five pound dumbbell.
The good news is that I have begun to forget that I have the damn pacemaker, although from time to time, particularly if I raise my right arm higher than usual, I do get pain in the general area of my wound and shoulder just to remind me that it's there.
I have also had the experience of being patted down twice at airports as I refused to go through the magnetometer. Next time, I think I'll risk it, as the patting down procedure is very elaborate. At Dulles Airport I had to wait while the expert patter down was found, by which time my jacket and shoes and the Macbook had all passed through the x-ray and were sitting there blocking the line of containers until Joan managed to scoop them up. The training for a patter downer is obviously very rigorous: put the blue rubber gloves on, explain the routine and the private parts that will be invaded, ask if you would prefer the patting down to take place in private, ask if there is any area that is sensitive, and then get to work--feeling with open hands, patting with the back of the hands, smoothing down this and that, and finally taking the gloves to a machine that presumably checks whether you have been in contact with explosives. Exactly the same routine--with exactly the same script--was followed at Santa Barbara on the return trip. I think I'll just speed through the magnetometer next week when we fly to England.
I suppose that I am coming to the end of this blog. I hope I am, although I am still somewhat anxious about my heart. First it was the fibrillation, from which, according to the cardiologists, I "got out of" naturally: my heart corrected the situation, leaving unanswered why it had fibrillated in the first place and whether it would fibrillate again. Then it was the bradycardia--heart too slow and stopping from time to time--for which the pacemaker was installed. Now, it seems--that's it. Heart problem over and done with? Back to a well-tempered heart (?) that went up to 122 beats per minute on the bicycle and treadmill this morning. Or is there something else lurking there that has so far not been detected? One wonders.
The appointment with the cardiologist was less satisfactory as he decided to change my pill regime. In addition to the blood thinner (Pradaxa--the hugely expensive drug at $750 for three months' supply), he prescribed a beta blocker (Micardis), the function of which is not clear to me. He also changed my blood pressure medication to something called Multaq (sounds like a Taliban leader) and annoyingly it has to be taken twice a day. So now I have to take three pills first thing in the morning and two pills at night. The pill-taking is all getting to be a bit too much. Mornings are not so bad, but I do tend to forget in the evening, and sometimes before I fall asleep I suddenly remember I have not taken the required two pills. It's not so bad if we are home in the evening and I can take them with our meal; but if we go out to eat or travel it is only too easy to forget. And just the fact that I have this pill regime is a constant reminder to me that all is not well
The cardiologist did emphasize that I should return to my usual exercise regime, and I have started to do so, getting back to my routine of treadmill, bicycle, and elliptical trainer for 40 minutes or so each morning. I cannot lift weights as my shoulder hurts if I attempt anything more than a five pound dumbbell.
The good news is that I have begun to forget that I have the damn pacemaker, although from time to time, particularly if I raise my right arm higher than usual, I do get pain in the general area of my wound and shoulder just to remind me that it's there.
I have also had the experience of being patted down twice at airports as I refused to go through the magnetometer. Next time, I think I'll risk it, as the patting down procedure is very elaborate. At Dulles Airport I had to wait while the expert patter down was found, by which time my jacket and shoes and the Macbook had all passed through the x-ray and were sitting there blocking the line of containers until Joan managed to scoop them up. The training for a patter downer is obviously very rigorous: put the blue rubber gloves on, explain the routine and the private parts that will be invaded, ask if you would prefer the patting down to take place in private, ask if there is any area that is sensitive, and then get to work--feeling with open hands, patting with the back of the hands, smoothing down this and that, and finally taking the gloves to a machine that presumably checks whether you have been in contact with explosives. Exactly the same routine--with exactly the same script--was followed at Santa Barbara on the return trip. I think I'll just speed through the magnetometer next week when we fly to England.
I suppose that I am coming to the end of this blog. I hope I am, although I am still somewhat anxious about my heart. First it was the fibrillation, from which, according to the cardiologists, I "got out of" naturally: my heart corrected the situation, leaving unanswered why it had fibrillated in the first place and whether it would fibrillate again. Then it was the bradycardia--heart too slow and stopping from time to time--for which the pacemaker was installed. Now, it seems--that's it. Heart problem over and done with? Back to a well-tempered heart (?) that went up to 122 beats per minute on the bicycle and treadmill this morning. Or is there something else lurking there that has so far not been detected? One wonders.
Cutler Computer Art
Sunday, May 08, 2011
An Address to the Heart...
Over the last few weeks I have been recording, for The Library of Congress, the complete poems of W.B. Yeats, in which the heart--usually metaphorically--is often directly addressed. And, frankly, sometimes the results are quite banal, and one wonders why the winner of the Nobel prize for literature decided they were worth publishing.
Take the first verse of "A Song," for example.
I thought no more was needed
Youth to prolong
Than dumb-bell and foil
To keep the body young.
O who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?
The answer to the question is "well, pretty much everybody, unless they believed in eternal youth."
I quite like "dumb-bell and foil." But though W.B.Yeats might have lifted the occasional dumb-bell, I doubt that he did much fencing (the 'foil').
You might also note that he is fairly liberal with his near rhymes ('prolong' with 'young') and doesn't worry too much about exact scansion.
He is better in a direct address to his heart in "The Tower."
What shall I do with this absurdity--
O heart, O troubled heart--this caricature,
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
As to a dog's tail?
I had a certain fellow feeling when I recorded those lines.
Another tick he seemed to have was an addiction to long titles. Such as: "On hearing that the students of our New University have joined the Agitation against Immoral Literature." "I see Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness.""The Poet pleads with the Elemental Powers."
I thought: let's give it a try:
The Poet addresses his Heart with the News that
He has to have a Pacemaker Installed
Old Ticker, why have you betrayed me,
It took some time to work this out, and I did reject two verses that maybe I should have kept:
Take the first verse of "A Song," for example.
I thought no more was needed
Youth to prolong
Than dumb-bell and foil
To keep the body young.
O who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?
The answer to the question is "well, pretty much everybody, unless they believed in eternal youth."
I quite like "dumb-bell and foil." But though W.B.Yeats might have lifted the occasional dumb-bell, I doubt that he did much fencing (the 'foil').
You might also note that he is fairly liberal with his near rhymes ('prolong' with 'young') and doesn't worry too much about exact scansion.
He is better in a direct address to his heart in "The Tower."
What shall I do with this absurdity--
O heart, O troubled heart--this caricature,
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
As to a dog's tail?
I had a certain fellow feeling when I recorded those lines.
Another tick he seemed to have was an addiction to long titles. Such as: "On hearing that the students of our New University have joined the Agitation against Immoral Literature." "I see Phantoms of Hatred and of the Heart's Fullness and of the Coming Emptiness.""The Poet pleads with the Elemental Powers."
I thought: let's give it a try:
The Poet addresses his Heart with the News that
He has to have a Pacemaker Installed
Old Ticker, why have you betrayed me,
Fluttering, quivering, missing the odd beat,
Shaking the stylus on the EKG?
Is it revenge for my conceit,
Feeling so fit for seventy-six?
Did I push you too hard with the hiking and biking?
Is that why you’re playing these cardiac tricks?
Or was my diet not to your liking?
Maybe it’s simply our DNA,
Some maladjustment growing since conception,
The genetic dice just rolled that way,
Creating some electric misconnection.
Possibly it’s just the wear and tear of years,
The heartaches, strains, vicissitudes of life,
Those disappointments and those fears and tears,
Sorrow, regrets, omissions, anger, strife.
But life has also been so rich
With love and pleasure, beauty, music, art:
These soothe the soul, but cannot stitch
The tattered tissues of the aging heart.
And now for shocking news, my dear Old Ticker.
Down through our veins they’re threading wires
To goose you into beating quicker
To match the speed a longer life requires.
Sorry to saddle you with this encumbrance,
To make your pace beat faster than before.
Consider it as life insurance,
Covering the risk we both might suffer more.
“Your heart will last a lifetime,” I’ve been told.
“How true,” is all I can reply.
You’ve been a bosom pal, a heart of gold:
We’ll hang in there together, you and I.
Forget the intimations of mortality,
Just be very thankful we’re alive:
Let’s rather focus on longevity—
I think I’m going to shoot for ninety-five.
And now for shocking news, my dear Old Ticker.
They’re going to make you work much faster,
To goose you into beating quicker
With an electronic blaster.
Well, maybe ‘blast’ is just exaggeration.
The voltage will be miniscule
And only last a fleeting micro-sec’s duration,
And with the power of just a milli-joule.
All for now. I have the interrogation appointment in a week's time. That should prompt another entry.
Sunday, May 01, 2011
You'll Forget It's There...
Two weeks into it (or IT in me), but I have not yet reached the stage of forgetting about it. Indeed, the thought that it is there is more or less constantly uppermost in my mind, or at most one layer down. And as I forget about the warnings against raising my arm and reach for a high shelf, or brush my hair, or try to dry my back after a shower, there is more than sufficient discomfort to remind me--that it's there, presumably sparking away at a rate of 60 bpm. And look at that little mound of flesh below my collar bone, which seems to move in a circular motion when I use my right arm to perform some repetitive action--cleaning my teeth, for example.
But the reminders that IT is there go beyond that fact; they raise all sorts of worries that percolate through my mind about my heart. Is this going to fix the problem? We started with atrial fibrillation. That was to be fixed by shocking the heart back into regular rhythm. Then the diagnosis changed to heart block category two, and hence the pacemaker. But when I ask whether the atrial fibrillation problem is solved, the answer was, "probably, but we cannot be sure." Or was it--"most probably."? So there is a continuing level of anxiety, which I suppose will only go away with the passage of time and some assurance that nothing else is wrong--that the pacemaker has fixed the problems.
Joan has suggested we need a name for the pacemaker. She draws an unlikely analogy between the pacemaker and our GPS, whose voice that guides us and bugs us ("recalculating ") we have named Agnes. I forget where that came from. We'll have to think about a name for the "device"--as the Manual insists on calling it--but perhaps we should wait until the technician interrogates it. He will probably know its name.
But the reminders that IT is there go beyond that fact; they raise all sorts of worries that percolate through my mind about my heart. Is this going to fix the problem? We started with atrial fibrillation. That was to be fixed by shocking the heart back into regular rhythm. Then the diagnosis changed to heart block category two, and hence the pacemaker. But when I ask whether the atrial fibrillation problem is solved, the answer was, "probably, but we cannot be sure." Or was it--"most probably."? So there is a continuing level of anxiety, which I suppose will only go away with the passage of time and some assurance that nothing else is wrong--that the pacemaker has fixed the problems.
Joan has suggested we need a name for the pacemaker. She draws an unlikely analogy between the pacemaker and our GPS, whose voice that guides us and bugs us ("recalculating ") we have named Agnes. I forget where that came from. We'll have to think about a name for the "device"--as the Manual insists on calling it--but perhaps we should wait until the technician interrogates it. He will probably know its name.
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