Meeting Bob pt5 - Now

Five years on, my pacemaker is very much a part of me. As a sort of coping mechanism I named it (him!) Bob. I was going to call him Gerry - as in Gerry and The Pacemakers - but that's too common. He's even got his own Facebook page! You can send him a friend request if you like! His name is Bob Pacemaker, and there's a picture of the exact model as his profile picture.

I have had some further problems, but Dave or Sean (the two pacemaker technicians) are always just a phone call away, and always willing to see me without an appointment.

About two years ago I kept feeling my heart racing. Several emergency admissions, and 24-hour ECGs (Holter monitors, they're called) I was eventually diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), an abnormal increase in my heart rate when I stand up. My blood pressure is in my boots too. I feel dizzy and sick, and sometimes black out. The symptoms are similar to heart block, but the cause is actually the opposite - too fast a heart rate, sometimes recording by Bob as 150-160bpm. The treatment for this is medication. I am prescrimed both calcium channel blockers and beta blockers. Ironically, the beta blocker is propranolol, the drug that caused my heart problem in the first place! Thankfully, Bob makes sure my heart rate doesn't drop below 50bpm.

Back in early 2008 I would never have dreamt that I'd have a pacemaker implanted in less than a year to treat a condition that could have potentially killed me in my sleep. I'd have had no inkling that something was wrong, I'd just go to sleep and never wake up. This is called SADS (Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome) and because it's an electrical problem it wouldn't be picked up at post mortem.

But to be completely honest with you, if you told me about all the problems I'd be faced with, then told me that I'd be battery powered for the rest of my life? I'd than my lucky starts that I'd be treated by fantastic people who really do care, and be able to rely on the best health service in the world.