A New Bundle of Joy!

Friends!

 

We have a new mem­ber of the family!

 

She is just a wee lit­tle thing, and in no time at all she has com­plete­ly cap­tured my heart!

 

Intro­duc­ing, Pene­lope the Pacemaker.

 

Oh, bliss!

 

We named her Penelope…

 

because…

 

well…

 

um…

 

Hel­lo? Allit­er­a­tion? There is no greater lit­er­ary device?

 

Duh.

 

[What? You DON’T spend time googling “names that begin with a p” while YOU are recov­er­ing from surgery? Dude, you are miss­ing out.]

 

Like many new arrivals, Pene­lope made a grand, and some­what off-script, entrance. The plan was to sim­ply slip her under my chest muscle.

 

(Yes, the word “sim­ply” does­n’t often go with “under my chest mus­cle” but work with me here.)

 

Instead of slip­ping into place, the med­ical team end­ed up hav­ing to slice and sep­a­rate my chest mus­cle for place­ment. The good news is that they thought­ful­ly gave me some med­i­cine for the pain…that I end­ed up being aller­gic to said med­i­cine is nei­ther here nor there…it’s all about the inten­tion, yes?

 

The even BETTER news is that this has all been so much fun that I signed up to do it every 10 years!

 

You know what they say about bun­dles of joy — you nev­er remem­ber the pain!

 

After dear lit­tle Pene­lope made her grand arrival, we spent some time in the hos­pi­tal so I could intro­duce her to every­one. Also so I could low­er the aver­age age on the pro­gres­sive care unit by a good 40+ years.

 

In fact, when I called the car­di­ol­o­gist a few days after surgery, I fol­lowed direc­tions and gave them my birth­date and name for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. When I asked if the very kind woman need­ed me to spell my last name, she was espe­cial­ly thought­ful to remind me that “no dear, you are the only one in the sys­tem born in 1983.”

 

Stu­pen­dous.

 

In oth­er news, I’m pulling for a remake of the Jet­sons. Ooooo per­haps a musi­cal remake with jazz hands and tap shoes?!?! Clear­ly I would star as Rosie the Robot.

 

 

(On sec­ond thought, the tap shoes could prove problematic…)

 

The day after Pene­lope was intro­duced to the world, the Biotron­ik rep­re­sen­ta­tive came to my room to check her out. The man kind­ly chat­ted with me as he was press­ing but­tons on a computer.

 

And then my heart start­ed to have a dance party.

 

PEOPLE.

The man con­trolled my heart by punch­ing but­tons into a com­put­er, all while stand­ing 10 feet away.

AND, get this!

After my first device check in 4–6 weeks, Pene­lope can have her check-ups via TELEPHONE.

I hold up my phone to my heart, and her stats are trans­mit­ted via phone.

 

I. Am. Rosie.

 

Pene­lope is not a fan of any source of extra voltage…so I’m going to have to final­ly put a stop to my habit of spend­ing so much time with the igni­tion of my car, and oper­at­ing pow­er tools.

 

Always did have a soft spot for the miter saw.

 

I did a bit of mul­ti-task­ing dur­ing my day at the hos­pi­tal spa, and also had a catheter abla­tion. This pro­ce­dure used cryo­gen­ics to freeze a por­tion of the wiring around my heart, and treat AV Nodal Re-Entrant Tachy­car­dia. I’ve had some fun­ny heart rhythm dance par­ties in recov­ery, but not all robots adjust overnight, and let’s be hon­est — Pene­lope is cause for hearty applause, yes?

 

It also appears that the med­ical world got a lit­tle bit ner­vous that they would­n’t get to see Pene­lope and me on a reg­u­lar basis (gosh, it’s always about her!)…so to reas­sure them, my feed­ing tube stoma decid­ed to burst open two days after my surgery.

 

Rest assured, this hap­pens in 2% of patients.

 

Some peo­ple recov­er from heart surgery by lying on the couch and read­ing magazines…I like to add in fun things like esopha­grams, fis­tu­la­grams, and a vis­it to the friend­ly neigh­bor­hood surgeon.

 

(And yes, my dreams have been dashed to dis­cov­er that nei­ther the esopha­gram, nor the fis­tu­la­gram, include any­thing sim­i­lar to the open­ing of a musi­cal greet­ing card. They don’t even include glit­ter. This med­ical world is a SHAM.)

 

I know it’s Novem­ber, and the start of a busy hol­i­day sea­son (I saw San­ta the oth­er day. It was Novem­ber 6^th?) but if you had a spare moment or two to think some good, qual­i­ty “no surgery” thoughts, Pene­lope and I would be most appreciative.

 

But per­haps more impor­tant­ly, friends, we have a big­ger and more dif­fi­cult assignment.

 

T‑minus ten years to think of a new P name!