Angie & Jim

All Doneby Jim

Well, that was faster than I thought.  Dr. Al-Ahmad just finished chatting with me.  He told me that the procedure went just fine.  They used the pacing catheter for just 2 or 3 minutes and that the old pacer “came out just fine”.  He also explained that they opted for a slightly different type of pacer this time that has a longer battery life instead of one that “has more algorithms”.  I thought that was a strange way of describing it, but he explained that the pacemaker they removed was the typical anti-tachycardia pacer that has a bunch of algorithms for pacing her heart down when/if she gets fibrillation in her heart.  Since she hasn’t needed those algorithms, he felt it best to get a pacer with “fewer algorithms” but with longer battery life.  I guess they replace the memory unit that contains the code with a larger battery.  Makes enough sense, I guess.

So, now I wait for them to let me see her and we wait for her 4-6 hours of bed rest before we can go home.  The surgeon said that she can go home tonight if she is feeling up to it and everything goes well this evening.  I know Angie will want (very badly) to go home tonight, so let’s hope the next few hours go well.