Today I returned to the Doctor for a follow up. All appears to be well. I still have a big bruise on my arm but the incision has healed nicely.
It turns out that there is a big flat metal thing embedded in my chest. It will pace my heart if it gets out of whack and it will deliver "therapy" if my heart stops. That's DocSpeak for Electrical Shock.
The reason for my limited arm use is that moving my arm can cause the lead into my heart to move around. Once scare tissue has formed around the lead, it will be solidly attached to my heart.
They can read everything that has been going on with my heart since the ICD was implanted. I have had a couple of short irregular heart beats but nothing that required "therapy".
The battery is currently good for nine years.
Soon I will be getting some sort of monitor in the mail. I will attach it to a phone line next to the bed and it will scan me every night. It will only notify the Doctor if it detects a problem.
That's a pretty cool feature but it has me wondering about the Big Brother aspects of all this. Will it be able to sit there and watch me. If so, it's going to get very bored.
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