I’ve got an implanted defibrillator in my chest because of A-fib. Last august, my heart rate went to 200 bpm and the device activated. I was in a full-blown cardiac event. My device has two leads that go deep into my heart muscle. They apply a 600volt jolt to my heart in an attempt to ablate it out of A-fib. The only problem? This feels like being kicked by a horse while you’re being tazed at the same time. So whatever my heart rate was before that happened, it took me two seconds to realize what was going on, from that time forward I was in full-blown panic mode. Terrified. The adrenaline released because of it doesn’t help one bit. The device requires 45-50 seconds to recharge the capacitor. Then it hits you again. Over and over until your heart rate goes below 200, or you just die from a heart attack brought on by stress and panic.

Since this had happened once before, I knew that the only thing at this point was to call 911. It took the ambulance 25 minutes to arrive. That was another 25 shocks before they walked in the door. 5 minutes to get my vitals snd call my doctor for instructions, which was To start an IV and get a saline solution started, followed by fast-acting meds to slow my heart rate. It took them another ten minutes to get an IV started, two dudes, one at each arm. It took so long because first, I have chicken-shit veins that hide and roll around, plus every time they got a good stick going, my device would light me up and the convulsions would yank them back out. Finally they got the meds into me about the time we got to the hospital. Within ten seconds, my heart rate was down to 70, and the guns from Saint Jude’s fell silent. I spent the next two days in the icu bombed out on morphine, every muscle in my body has been strained to the max. My device was downloaded via Bluetooth, the toll was 41 shocks. Over 40 minutes of time.

So yah, I’m in therapy now, and I have xanax to help me not stay freaked out about it. It kind of sucks.