It's amazing what kind of technology surrounds us in today's world. Just a few decades ago we had telephones with party lines. Now we have cellular phones and the ability to make conference calls. We had metal tags that we put on our dog's collars to identify who their owners were; now we have microchips implanted under the surface of their skin with the ability to store a multitude of information about your pet.
"Ventricular tachycardia (V-tach or VT) is a tachycardia, or fast heart rhythm that originates in one of the ventricles of the heart. This is a potentially life-threatening arrythmia because it may lead to ventricular fibrillation and sudden death." - Wikipedia
On the morning of August 6th of this year, I participated in a treadmill test after checking into the hospital with what I perceived to be symptoms of a heart attack two days earlier. The test went well with nothing discovered during the test to give a reason for why I had the heart attack-like symptoms. The team had me sit on a gurney as I recovered from the test and proceeded to monitor my blood pressure. That's when the ruckus started.
The attending tech could not get a blood pressure reading. I sat calmly on the gurney thinking there was a problem with the cuff or the actual blood pressure monitor. Then the tech called in another tech because she noticed there was something unusual with the "tracer" on the EKG monitor. After a few seconds they decided to call the cardiologist back in who had just left as I continued to focus on relaxing and getting my heart rate back down. He returned in just a few moments, monitored the situation, then got on his phone to call the ER to get a cardiac team into the room we were in because I was having a v-tach.
For six minutes, my heart was beating so fast that it wasn't pumping any blood. It was just vibrating is how one of the techs described it to me before my heart began to beat again. So for six minutes, no blood was moving; no oxygenated blood was getting to my brain. Looking back on this with my non-existent medical and limited human biological knowledge, I should have passed out or been dead. Contrary to this though, I was conscious and very alert through the whole ordeal.
Two days later I went into surgery to receive an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) or a pacemaker with the added feature of a defibrillator. It's designed to monitor and assist with regulating my heartbeat electronically and when necessary restart my heart with an electronic shock that is supposed to feel like somebody kicked me in the chest.
Just like the dog with the foreign chip implanted under it's skin, I now have a foreign object implanted under the skin on the left side of my chest just below the clavicle. It is definitely a strange feeling to have it there. I can't make a move without it telling me, "Here I am buddy. You're stuck with me for the rest of your life." I've always wanted to be married again, but not to something like this.
I still have a little over month left in the doctor prescribed healing process. I've been told not to reach over my head or behind me with my left arm to help prevent the wires in my heart from being pulled away from the heart wall where they've been placed. Fortunately I'm right-handed so it hasn't impeded me too much with my activities. But now I wonder what the future holds for me.
My curiosity is not in regard to my physical future but my spiritual future. From what I know, sudden death was upon me but I didn't die. God isn't done with me yet, but what does He have in store for me? What are His plans for me that He wasn't ready to take me home yet? He has revealed to me in the last couple of weeks a lot about what goes on in the spiritual realm and I'm wondering what all of this means? What I know right now in this moment is that I'm very excited as to what He has planned for me.
