Thursday, January 10, 2013

News!!

The telemetry monitor is gone!  Whoo-hoo!  I'm currently not attached to anything.  It deactivated this morning, and I'm totally happy.  Now, my doctor reads the EKGs and then determines if I need the defibrillator implanted.  I doubt I will, bc I didn't need to record too many "events" during my long 30 days of wearing it, just the occasional arrhythmia, and we all have those.  So fingers crossed that she doesn't see anything questionable, and that I can basically be free from tests, besides my annual echoes.

Next step-hoping my skin heals well after all these sticky electrodes have been on there for 30 days, 24/7…ugh!  I'd have to stick them in different areas, but in about the same region every day, and there are not many different areas on my chest and ribs that they can go.

After 2 weeks in the hospital with their telemetry on me 24/7 besides shower time and x-rays, and 3 months with that portable defibrillator, and now these last 30 days of the telemetry monitor, I am Fa-reeeeeeeeee!

I am super duper happy (I know, who says duper anymore, but whatever), and just wanted to share it with everyone…small news can be good news.

In case anyone was wondering, this is what it looks like:


                                                       thanks google images

Now, this handsome devil is not me, I'm a girl, but this is what the system looks like.  I had that cord around my neck for 30 days, the 3 electrodes and wires on my body every day, and that little awesome 90s-esque cell phone looking thing in his hand?  Well, that was attached to my hip…fun stuff…

Cardionet is the provider of this telemetry system, and the customer service was pretty awesome.  What was cool is that they sent out about 30 or so batteries, bc the batteries had to be changed every, single day.  The monitor thingie had to be charged a lot.  One of the things I hope they improve on is the monitor.  It lost its charge within a few hours, and lots of times, I couldn't recharge until I got home.  And they also could, and I think they did, improve the stinking size of it.  We have little iPods, and now iPad minis, but this huge thing?  Actually, I saw a recent pic of what their newer machines look like, and I was thinking, "why the heck did they send me something so huge and dated?"  Apparently, I'm not special enough to have received the more convenient one.  So, to end, I'm super happy that I got rid of it, the customer service people were pretty helpful and nice, but the actual monitor itself left something to be desired.

So, yeah, happy dance for me!

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