Please Wait for the Beep

One morning last week, I heard a beeping sound. Well, it was more like the firefighter minion in Despicable Me 2 except duller and, yes, coming from my chest.

I have experienced my pacemaker beeping before, so I called the hospital. They said most likely the pacemaker was nearing replacement time and they had me perform a remote check so they could confirm. It showed that it is nearing time to replace it, but also that there was an episode of atrial fibrillation on July 22nd for about 14 hours.

14 hours?? Whoa.

I did not recall feeling any different that day, but it made me a little anxious hearing “fibrillation”since that's what started all these heart adventures in 2007. They did not tell me to come to the emergency room, so I felt a bit better that it was not an urgent issue.

I had an appointment with my cardiologist today because it had been a couple (uneventful) years since I had seen him. Thankfully, everything seems to be going pretty well. The beeping was because a remote check had not completed properly, but it is close to replacement time. The next time the alert goes off will probably be to indicate that. I will have three months to get it replaced at that point.

The atrial fibrillation is not much to worry about, as long as it does not happen often and I do not feel it. They are going to keep an eye on it and if it keeps happening, I might go on some additional medicine. So far it has only happened once, though. Importantly, ventricular fibrillation is what happened to me in 2007 and is more problematic. That has not happened to me again. If it did, the pacemaker would shock me.

I am scheduled for an Echocardiogram at the end of August, but that is just routine since it has been several years since my last one.

Otherwise, after the beep, please replace your pacemaker.