Pacing myself!

Ok - so there has been quite a bit going on lately.

I got a pacemaker... Yup, me, at 26, I got a pacemaker. It was kinda coming, we knew it had to happen. And it made it easier to get it done because The Mr and I had talked about going to the Dr's to find out about getting one sooner rather than later. So the idea wasn't just sprung on us, but the surgery was. I had an episode with my heart on Monday, I told them on Tuesday, they called on Wednesday for an appointment and to tell me that I was going in on Monday for a pacemaker....

 Ok, so this is after the 1st one. Yes, there is a 1st surgery. When they put the wires in, the wires apparently caught my diaphragm..My doctor explained that my diaphragm was getting paced along with my heart. In normal anatomy, the leads go in the right atrium and the right ventricle. In my backwards anatomy, my leads go in the left side. The phrenic nerve comes down from the neck (C3-C5), the nerve splits and the left phrenic nerve passes over the pericardium of the left ventricle and then down to the diaphragm. (My nerves are in the correct location, it's my heart that is backwards... So the nerve goes around the back of the heart, where my leads were positioned....) So when the charge goes down the leads, it catches the phrenic nerve and my diaphragm is paced right along with my heart, which right now is set at 60 bpm. They ended up trying to program it down, which didn't work so a week after they put in the 1st pacemaker, they took it out and repositioned the leads. 

This is after the 2nd surgery. It really sucked being in the hospital for 2 weeks. I was only in the hospital overnight each time, but it was a week of painful recovery each time, the 2nd time it was a longer recovery (there was no surgery in the middle of the recovery!!).

So it's been 3 weeks since the 2nd surgery and I feel amazing! I immediately had tons of energy to chase my kiddo around. I freaking love it! I feel sooo dang good!!