Hi everyone,

My name is Lee and I'm 53 year old

I was due to go to China for a holiday in February this year when I had
4 Cardiac Arrests just as I got onto the plane at Heathrow, I have no
recollection of this nor any of the ensuing chaos as i was apparently
unconcious for some 22 minutes. I do not remember driving to Heathrow
or really any of the day itself in any coherent way and the following 3
days after the event are equally erased from memory.

So I was certainly shocked, alarmed, bitter and unhappy when I realised
that my so called fit life was at an end. I had untill this event
regularly visited the Gym for about 4-5 hours a week and swam about 60
lengths. I was not some super fit guy but pleased that i was doing my
bit to keep myself together and looking trim into the bargain.

So I now have had this amazing ICD device, which apparently is a state
of the art piece of technology fitted inside my chest and which will
defribrillate me as and when required or when I reach my pulse trigger
point.

Having searched on the Net about 'Cardiac Arrests' and 'ICD devices' it
certainly would appear that I am a very lucky guy indeed as most people
who have CA are in their own home or nowhere near trained medical staff
or indeed a public defibrillator. To be, as I was inside a major
Airport with so many staff trained in these matters was nothing short
of miraculous in my opinion.

So some 3-4 weeks after this I developed Pleurisy whilst at home and
that was equally very unpleasant and very painful but was soon dealt
with and now just coming home from the Doctors to pick up my repeat
megamountain of drugs I have been told that it seems I have
Claudication pain in my legs and so another round of tests and trips to
Hospitals is required.

This by itself is usually not a problem but for the fact that once you
have an ICD fitted you cannot drive for 6 months and have your license
removed and as I live in the sticks has reduced me to being a house
prisoner..... Thank God at least for the Net for entertainment and
email.

At least I have managed to transfer my monitoring from the top class
and beautiful Harefield Hospital, (a round jouney of over 120 miles),
to my local Hospital, Darenth, which wondrously has a Cardiac ICD unit
and to boot is literally about 1 mile away.

I have only just got back from my first ICD check up at Harefield and
was pleased to be told that no activity had been recorded, which is
very comforting. I just cannot fathom what has caused me to have the CA
in the first place. In the past I have had minor episodes of missed
heart beats but nothing that has ever given me great cause for concern.

I understand that ICD's can be remotely monitored which would save even
on the mere 2 mile round trip, so i will ask if this can be done at my
next check up in June.

Anyway thanks for reading this and Hi again.

Kindest regards
Lee

--- In icdsupport@yahoogroups.com, "tcasl" <trudie@...> wrote:
>
> This board has only been open for two weeks and already we have
almost
> 30 members Could I please ask you all to post a message to introduce
> youraelf with as much or little information as you wish Once we get
to
> know each other there should be regular messages appearing
>
> Look forward tohearing from each adn everyone of you
>
> Best wishes
>
> Trudie
>