The Heart of a Mom
I was just printing out the last two months worth of blogging (I keep it in a binder, you see), and realized I had not updated you on my mom since she had the defibrillator installed.
Well, it turns out it was the best possible timing for her. Just one month after her surgery she had a cardiac event and the defibrillator was put to use. She had walked a few blocks to join us for Colin's Christmas concert. When she walked in the building and we started toward the sanctuary, she suddenly screamed a froze in place. Then she whispered, "I've been electrocuted." For a moment, I looked around for electrical cords, confused as to how she could have been electrocuted, but I quickly realized what had happened. She said she felt okay, but was tingling all over.
Thankfully, her cardiologist's partner's wife is a friend of mine and they were there for the concert. He calmed me down considerably (I was quite shaken - much more than mom was!). We got her doctor on the phone and he said if she didn't pass out and she felt okay, she could just come in the next day so they could get a read-out and discover what happened.
Amazingly, the little gadget keeps a record of everything her heart does, and they were able to discover that she had several small episodes that lead to the big one. Without the defibrillator she would have probably passed out, requiring and ambulance and a trip to the hospital. Frankly, she probably would not have had treatment soon enough to save her life. At a minimum, it would have been a major ordeal.
I am now in awe of the little defibrillator and of the perfect timing of it all.
I was just printing out the last two months worth of blogging (I keep it in a binder, you see), and realized I had not updated you on my mom since she had the defibrillator installed.
Well, it turns out it was the best possible timing for her. Just one month after her surgery she had a cardiac event and the defibrillator was put to use. She had walked a few blocks to join us for Colin's Christmas concert. When she walked in the building and we started toward the sanctuary, she suddenly screamed a froze in place. Then she whispered, "I've been electrocuted." For a moment, I looked around for electrical cords, confused as to how she could have been electrocuted, but I quickly realized what had happened. She said she felt okay, but was tingling all over.
Thankfully, her cardiologist's partner's wife is a friend of mine and they were there for the concert. He calmed me down considerably (I was quite shaken - much more than mom was!). We got her doctor on the phone and he said if she didn't pass out and she felt okay, she could just come in the next day so they could get a read-out and discover what happened.
Amazingly, the little gadget keeps a record of everything her heart does, and they were able to discover that she had several small episodes that lead to the big one. Without the defibrillator she would have probably passed out, requiring and ambulance and a trip to the hospital. Frankly, she probably would not have had treatment soon enough to save her life. At a minimum, it would have been a major ordeal.
I am now in awe of the little defibrillator and of the perfect timing of it all.
posted by Jan at 11:00 PM
2 Comments:
My mom has been having heart problems and needed to be shocked back into rhythm. One thing they gave her was a small credit card. When she feels her heart flutter, she presses this to her chest and pushes a button.
The next time she is at a phone, she calls a 1-800 # and places the handset next to the card. The card transmits all the information that it recorded from my mom's chcest and the Dr receives a printout of the data. It can hold 3 incidents before she has to transmit.
This totally stupified me. I had never heard of such a thing.
Glad to hear you Mom is doing better.
Cool and *double* cool for Dwayne's mom.
later...
Post a Comment
<< Home