Noise
By Wm. Anthony Connolly, PhD
No medical advice conferred, none should be taken. Please seek medical advice from a professional, not me.
Here’s a timeline. Sunday, April 12th: Dizzy. Breathless. Lightheaded. Emergency. Ambulance. ICU hospital unit. Bradycardia. Monday, April 13th: See and hear my heart. Cath Lab for a procedure. To implant a pacemaker. Tuesday, April 14th: New day. Eager to be home. Home by 11. Good energy. Wrote a poem called “Water Music.” Wednesday, April 15th: First full day back. Very tired. Sleeplessness and anxiety have caught up with me. Thursday, April 16th: Dr. D. Longer neighborhood walks. Not bad energy. Friday, April 17th: Bandages off. First picture of the pacemaker wound. Went to see colleagues at the library. Saturday, April 18th: The reality of GPL-1 monthly costs. Sunday, April 19th: One week since. And what do we know?
The notes are from a drugstore notebook I purchased while waiting in line for my prescriptions the week I’d returned home from the hospital, the procedure, and began a new life with a pacemaker.
Dizzines. Breathlessness. Lightheaded.
I’d had these symptoms for such a long time, my former doctor thought it was or had to be “long COVID,” because no other logical explanation could be discerned. Cardiac and pulmonary possibilities were ruled out via specialist visits and procedures, including a heart catheterization.
An EKG is like a snapshot
Why had my slow heartbeat not been detected? Largely because Bradycardia is a conduction issue, which is detected via an EKG, a number of which I’d had over the years, but my issue of both right and left branches of my heart misfiring, as it were, wasn’t caught.
“An EKG is like a snapshot,” my cardiovascular surgeon, Dr. M. del C, said to me. The conduction issue simply wasn't seen on an EKG until, well, my symptoms came on more frequently. It was my increasing episodes this past spring that made it easier to detect. Prior to their increased occurrence, the symptoms had come and gone — not every day — for probably four years.
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When my symptoms became unavoidable, I knew, my wife knew, it was time to go to an emergency center. We chose one close enough to town (we live in a rural state), and the staff there evaluated it. An ambulance was called for, and I was transferred to a local hospital.
At the hospital, I meet the surgeon who informed me of my EKG result and my condition. “You need a pacemaker,” she said, “Tomorrow morning. First thing. You are my top priority.”
I’m admitted to the ICU. Nurse Lori and Nurse Technician Jennifer hook me up to an ICU monitoring bed in my own room.
Blood tests. Heart rates. BPM.
And I’m finally on my own and freaking out. But I end up reading in bed — We Do Not Part by Han Kang — distracting myself as best as I can.
Night shift is with Daisy and Shannon, both nurses. A terrible night, to be frank. No sleep.
Blood pressure is very high.
Anxious.
Afraid.
Noise.
All of it is noise.
