Unexpected Chaos

cyborg

/ˌsaɪˈbɔrg/

noun

 a human being whose body has been taken over in whole or in part by electromechanical devices

synonyms:bionic man,

I am sitting in a hotel room after 2 nights in a hospital where I survived my very own near death experience. My heart simply stopped beating. The first attack came around 2 in the afternoon. I was laying back on the sofa on the boat after some easy buffing and polishing. A strange vertigo like haze (there are no words I know that can explain what was happening) flushed over me, instantly provoking a chaotic dream-like state too convoluted to describe. I came to with Deb shaking me and shouting my name, a look of panic on her face. I had been completely unresponsive for nearly a minute.

I came back completely disoriented, flowing with sweat, and barely able to move. Just sitting up was a long journey needing assistance. A 911 call brought help in the form of four large EMT workers who got me off the boat, into an ambulance, and to the ER a half hour drive away. It was the longest half hour I have ever endured. The vertigo-like experience was accompanied by a body-wide feeling of a brutal heart burn compounded by a feeling of complete dissociation. Every time the vehicle went around a corner or hit a bump the entire world dissolved into chaos. I had no idea what was wrong and, regardless of the multiple times I have managed to wreck myself, I don’t recall ever hurting that bad. The 911 crew was pumping in all kinds of drugs, none of which seemed to make any difference. Once in the ER, things didn’t improve much. They sat me in a chair and pushed me off to the side because they were so busy. The ride in the chair was as torturous as the ride in the ambulance. I clung onto Deb’s hand and the armrests, barely managing to stay in the seat. There was nothing but chaos and hurt. 

For what was roughly another (endless) half hour I was engaged in a relentless battle with a foe I couldn’t see and didn’t understand. After an eternity, someone finally got me on a gurney and connected up a heart monitor. The cause became apparent. My heart rate would plummet to 20 or less, the hurt and disorientation would become intense, then my heart would pick up the pace a little so I could hang on. That was what was happening. Why it was happening remained unknown. At one point my heart rate dropped to zero for more than 20 seconds. The alarms went off but no one noticed except Deb. She charged off to find help while the chaos and hurt returned to overrun the world. Somehow I struggled back from wherever it was that a heart rate of zero leaves you. But the 20 second flat line of a heartbeat was in the data file. Another eternity seemed to pass before an ER Doctor who could make some decisions saw the monitors. According to Deb he became more than a little angry and off I went to get a temporary pace maker probe installed through the right side of my neck and into my heart.

The first event on the boat happened at 2:28 pm. It was nearly 10:00 pm before I was wheeled into the Cardiac ICU, the temporary pacemaker finally bringing some relief. Over the course of the longest night ever, the device recorded having to step in to keep my heart going on at least 8 different occasions. The next morning the decision was made to implant a permanent and more sophisticated pacemaker near my left collarbone. I got out of the OR around 3:26. By 6:15 I was awake, eating, sitting up, with the chaos that had been my world collapsed back into one I recognized. And, to be fair, the care I received by the team in the Cardiac ICU was nothing short of excellent. For all of my practice, I am not a particularly good patient. But they took the best possible care of me during those initial hours of recovery. 

This afternoon I was discharged and now sit in a hotel near the hospital, just in case. The view out the window is of the river. The sky is quiet and blue.

If it had not been for the delay with the Dink motor we would have been in an isolated anchorage miles from any kind of help when the first event happened. There is little to no chance I would have survived the subsequent series of attacks. But now, except for the wounds inflicted by the temporary pacemaker wire run through the right side of my neck, the permanent install near my left collarbone, and four different places where IVs were inserted or blood was drawn, I am fine. My left shoulder is sore and it will be a few weeks before I will be allowed to lift that arm above shoulder height or reach across my torso. This is to give the pacemaker and the leads to my heart a chance to become buried in tissue and secured in place. I now fit the textbook definition of a cyborg. The thing is bluetooth enabled and can report my condition to a doctor half way across the country. It can also be adjusted as necessary. 

In the next day or so Deb and friends will move First Light from her current slip to a nearby marina that has floating docks. The move will make it possible for me to get on and off the boat over the six weeks or so I’m told it will take to fully recover. After that we will start a slow trek north with the goal of having First Light in the northern Chesapeake bay by fall. There she will go up on the hard until spring when we will splash once again to finish the trip to St. Louis. This is all very tentative but it is a good plan to start from. As the next few weeks of sitting on the boat in a beautiful place and in a quiet town we love pass, I will try to make sense of these last few days.

But I suspect that will not be possible. Nor, in a most basic way, does it matter. This is the day we have. What tomorrow will bring is mystery.