Yes, the magic tiny piece of technology ticks away in the chests of more Goulburn Valley people than you imagine, keeping them both healthy and alive.
These people, old, not so old and even some in their thirties and forties gather, in Shepparton’s case, at the Parkside Dve community centre for their annual pacemaker “roadworthy”.
Pacemakers come from several manufacturers and their technical representatives are dotted around the walls of a rather large room at the centre.
Personally, Boston Scientific’s pacemaker is close to my heart — well, it’s really attached to my heart via a thin wire that ensures my heart rate will never drop below 60 beats a minute.
This small piece of magic in my chest has, in my view, saved my life as my heart rate had become abnormally slow and even after a walk of 10 kilometres or so it would top out at about 35 beats a minute.
And tests, wearing an array of wires and a heart rate monitor recording the process, noted that while sleeping my heart slowed to as little as 27 beats a minute, making sleep risky and difficult.
My doctor was concerned that a stroke was getting closer by the day.
Of course, I’m unsure about other brands of pacemakers, but with Boston Scientific, my pacemaker connects to the technician’s computer via Bluetooth.
That connection provides the technician with a raft of information that helps her, Christina in my case, see, with some precision, what the performance of heart has been throughout the past year.
Those details can be seen on the screen of her computer and one of two or three doctors in the room cast and eye over the results, checks personally about my feelings and comments about any abnormalities he might see.
During the check-up, Christina alerts me that she was about to momentarily disengage my pacemaker, warning me that maybe I might notice some changes.
With the simple press of her finger, my pacemaker stops, and my heart rate drops immediately to 30 beats a minute.
She removes her finger, and instantly I’m back to a steady 60 beats a minute, indicating the small miracle in my chest is working perfectly.
When installed more than a year ago, I was told, the tiny battery in this tiny wonder in my chest would last a decade.
At my recent “roadworthy”, predictions put the battery as being good for another nine years.
Any criticism of Australia’s national healthcare system, Medicare, is misplaced as my journey to be fitted with a pacemaker, began with a ambulance ride to Shepparton’s GV Health, where I spent about a week, including a few days in intensive care, then to the Sunshine Hospital for about a week to have the pacemaker installed, after which I was brought back to Shepparton in a taxi.
That life-changing, life-saving experience came without cost.
14°C