Looking for the longest running pacemaker, with the strongest living battery!
by Douglas A. Gero
(Moira, N.Y.)
I'am a 57 year old man who has been through a major twenty and one/half years of pure hell. I mean {hell}.
I am a truck driver. Even with all the pain I have been through, I have managed to drive a tractor trailer, and do good job of it.
Now for the rest of the story. When I was thirty-six years old I got to a point that I could not walk stairs, run, or do anything people at my age could, or wanted to do. I was rushed to the emergency room in Mt. St. Mary's hospital in early September 1988. I could not bend over (I would bleed from the nose) or walk up stairs - almost nothing with out bleeding out the nose.
They ordered me in the hospital where I stayed for 3 and a half weeks. At that time the "doctors" told me I would need a pacemaker. Well I was upset, could not believe this was happening to me. I told the doctors that was not going to happen. They "the doctors" told me I would have one put in, or I would lose my drivers license. The pacemaker was put in.
I started with pain as soon as I was in the recovery room. I lived like this for 15 years - bad pain in my chest even when I was driving. I told the "doctors" about it. Not my heart. Had two upper GIs done in eight years. not my stomach or throat.
In 2002, I was sent to a specialist in Burlington,VT. He checked the battery, he said was over 75 percent good. He turned the high side off and the low side down to 48 bpm.
I just had a problem July 13th. Was in the E.R., bad EKG. They kept me for 3 days. It's now 8/7/09, the doctors want to check the strength of the battery and put in a new one if it needs it. " EXCUSE ME" Someone please tell me WHY?
