So I've decided to open this up again and get a little personal, if only because I think what I'm going through now is fairly interesting and not an experience I'm likely to forget in a hurry. A few blogs back you might remember I noted that I was currently in hospital for a rather lengthy period and had a little rant on how depressing it is for an able bodied person to be penned up in such an instituion. Well, if I wanted too I could come at it from the other side as I'm no longer an able bodied person. But I think it would be far more interesting to talk about the circumstances that led to me becoming less able bodied than I was.
As you may remember I noted that I had a pacing device with an infection clinging to the leads. As the unit and the leads are forgien bodies, the natural defences of the body that travel through the blood are useless in fighting anything on them because they don't have their own bloodstream. After much debating, ruminating, beard scratching and other phrases denoting 'We're very conflicted and confused and need to talk and think long and hard about this' the doctors decided there was only one option. It had to come out.
Easy enough, right? They put it in there no problem, so they can take it out the same. Well, in ordinary circumstances I'm sure the answer to that question is yes, no problem whatsoever. But there was a unique little complication in my case. While they installed the pacemaker itself in November, the leads? They'd been inside me for a good twenty years. Meaning they were freaking old, and deeply embedded.
The operation to get them out is fairly fascinating to hear about. I can tell you it wasn't a particularly fun ride to go through, and I'm sure the surgeons would have liked to do something far less complicated, but it was fascinating to hear about before and afterwards nonetheless. What they eventually decided on doing was going in via the site they'd installed the pacing unit before. Then they took out the pacing box itself and followed the path of the wires, covering them in little tubes as they went. From there they used a laser scalpel to cut into the areas where the wires were, rather literally, screwed into the skin and pulled the entire wire back along the tubes.
Yes. You read that right. Laser scalpels! I may have lost all claim to being a cyborg for a little while, having had my mechanical bits removed, but at the very least I can say I was operated on using lasers!
From here on out, it's just a matter of recovery and infection control. But during that period I'm living with the biggest change of my life. For the first time in over twenty years, I'm without any kind of pacing unit whatsoever, and by God does it feel like it! I've gone from longing for somewhere, anywhere to roam and wander that's not hospital or university, to just being glad I can shuffle across to the bathroom in the morning and have a shower. I am slowed down. Significantly. And the idea of taking it easy has taken on a whole new level.
It's a really curious and disconcerting thing, when you have to think about every little thing you're doing and weigh up the potential gain of doing it against how much it's going to drain what little energy you have. Even writing this blog, I find myself pausing, tilting my head to the side and collecting my thoughts before carrying on. It's not that I'm finding it exhausting, but it seems like even my thought processes have slowed a little bit, and of course my fingers on the keyboard only know one speed - And it's not terribly slow.
Apparently they want to wait at least a couple of weeks before they reinsert any kind of device, and it's going to be an interesting and I imagine very frustrating time for me. On the one hand it's going to be very hard for me to have to keep conciously weighing every single action I do against some potential discomfort and extra strain, but on the other, considering what they did to me I'm very lucky to be in the condition I am. I'm off intensive care, back on a normal human ward, and feel generally better than when they turned my pacemaker down for a trial run at this. Back then all I wanted was for them to turn it back on, to save me from the pit of misery they'd thrown me in. Right now, though? As uncomfortable as this is, I think I can stick it out for as long as I need too. Providing it all stays as fine and dandy as it has this weekend.
It's a trudge, make no mistake, but it's all just that one little step closer to going home, and let me tell you, I can't wait.
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