The timing of the beating of one\u2019s heart is an important and complicated process involving chemical and electrical signals and best left to someone else to explain.\u00a0 Nancy\u2019s heart has been irregular and a bit fast at times and so she gets a pill to slow it down.\u00a0 As that chemical waxes and wanes so might her own internal controls and if the two combine just so \u2013 sometimes her heart rate slows.\u00a0 It did that last night.<\/p>\n
The doctor in charge of the evening crew thought Nancy\u2019s heart was being less than true and sent her downstairs to have a temporary pacemaker attached. \u00a0For closer monitoring purposes they than moved her back into the ICU rather than into the room on the 4th<\/sup> floor where she had been.\u00a0 I talked with her and the nurse at about 1 AM, then went down in mid-morning.<\/p>\n In the \u2018temp\u2019 setup the power source is outside the body with a lead to the heart and then initiates the impulse for contraction of the heart muscle.\u00a0 [Look up the \u2018sino-atrial node\u2019 if you really want to know more.]\u00a0 The plan was to insert the lead up through a vein in the crotch area.\u00a0 Those veins either had a problem because of having been used earlier for the balloon angioplasty, or perhaps has some blood clots from weeks of inactivity.\u00a0 In any case, those trying this entry point had no luck and after some considerable period of time decided on a new route through the side of the neck.\u00a0 That was quickly done.\u00a0 Nancy compared their antics to The Three Stooges.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if she told them so but she did tell some of us at mid-morning.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think the decision has been made to implant a permanent pacemaker although that is a possibility. \u00a0Meanwhile the pulse is steady now.<\/p>\n When I arrived this morning a crew was doing an exam of veins to check for the aforementioned problems suspected when the \u2018stooges\u2019 [I\u2019m sure they are skilled and nice people.\u00a0 They just irritated Nancy.] could not get the heart lead inserted. I think the machine is the same as used for an echocardiogram but used differently or with additional chemical tracers and software (I missed all but the last minute \u2013 poor timing.) and falls under the category of \u2018vascular ultrsonography\u2019 \u2013 I think that\u2019s what they said.<\/p>\n They wheeled the machine out.\u00a0 Nancy, the doctor, the nurse, and I visited off and on for an hour and the machine was brought back in \u2013 with a different operator (but one we knew) and he started to set up for an echocardiogram to be followed by lunch and then, who knows?<\/p>\n I went to fill the car with gas and came home.\u00a0 I\u2019ll call later but don\u2019t plan on going down again today.\u00a0 We have patches of dense fog and as darkness comes driving is difficult.\u00a0 Besides, I haven\u2019t been to the grocery store in more than a week.\u00a0 It is now 3:30 \u2013 I\u2019ll post this and go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The timing of the beating of one\u2019s heart is an important and complicated process involving chemical and electrical signals and best left to someone else to explain.\u00a0 Nancy\u2019s heart has been irregular and a bit fast at times and so she gets a pill to slow it down.\u00a0 As that chemical waxes and wanes so … Continue reading “THURSDAY — timing is important”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p72iNf-1a","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}