I’ve just discovered that I share something that gets to the heart of the matter with the celebrated author of children’s literature Jacqueline Wilson.
No, I haven’t started writing stories for kids!
However, the creator of much loved characters like Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather has a defibrillator neatly implanted inside of chest after being diagnosed with heart failure.
Actually, she’s on her third having had the first fitted 16 years ago when she was 62.
Mine is just over a month old, having been installed on my birthday.
To my surprise, I was wide awake in the operating theatre (although sedated, thankfully) as the surgeon sliced a gap of around five centimetres (two inches) under my left collarbone.
Defibrillator implant
It was enough space to squeeze the implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD) under my skin and above the rib cage and hook it up to my heart with a wire.
It wasn’t as bad as it sounds and only took about an hour.
I was even able to enjoy some birthday cake with the nurses in cardio wards at Middlesbrough’s James Cook University Hospital a few hours later and allowed home the same day.
Mind, I had to take things slowly for the first month after the procedure. No over-arm movements or extreme stretching of my left arm and I couldn’t drive for a month.
Precautionary measure
Like Jacqueline Wilson’s defibrillator, my one has been fitted as a precautionary measure. The device monitors heart rate and delivers a strong electrical shock to restore the heartbeat to normal in the event of tachycardia (an abnormally rapid beat).
Because it is an implant, my bionic support (about the size of a small i-Pod) comes with me wherever I go.
Amazingly, it is connected by Bluetooth technology to my mobile phone and sends daily reports to the Middlesbrough hospital team so they can remotely monitor readings from the device 24/7.
The batteries last for about 5 to 7 years. I can check that everything is working, via an app on my phone, which admittedly took two of the younger nurses and IT department at the hospital nearly an hour to set-up thanks to the rubbish wi-fi at the hospital.
It has taken a bit of getting used to and I find it difficult to find a comfortable position for sleeping some nights.
Feel more confident
But, I certainly feel more confident having the back-up in case all the medications I am taking needs extra support to keep my heart ticking.
Jacqueline Wilson, pictured, is equally delighted with her ICD, and in a recent diary column for The Spectator magazine she said she is “bouncing along like a Duracell bunny” and about to embark of a major book tour.
Although I’m a few years younger than her, I am taking things at a slower pace although I have returned to gentle swimming two to three times-a-week, even if I have to use breast-stroke instead of crawl.
I am back driving, although I’ve had to inform the DVLA about having the ICD fitted.
Hopefully, as with the bowel cancer I had nearly a decade ago, I recognised in good time that my increasing breathlessness and wheezing when lying down could be something worth checking out with the doctor.
So far, I have managed to cope with my daily cocktail of ten or 12 different tablets plus a change of life-style and more healthy diet, including strictly limiting myself to under 14 units of alcohol a week and watching my intake of saturated fats, sugar and salt.
And I feel a lot healthier having lost about a stone in weight, which I managed to maintain at around 75 kilograms (11 stone 11 pounds). That’s over a stone down on a year ago.
- As a warning to anyone, especially men, who ignore the warning signs, Stefano Hatfield recently wrote about the mistakes he made when he suffered his second heart attack after ignoring the serious chest pains he was suffering until it was almost too late. See his story in the i-news website.
Also see my earlier heart failure blogs on this website:
What’s it like being told you have heart failure?
How to lose weight and fight heart failure
How tough can it be to stop drinking alcohol?
- Photos thanks to British Heart Foundation; American Heart Association and Book Trust
