Jump Start

Self Portrait

With quiet resignation I sit here knowing that a week from now I’ll be laid out again on an operating table. This time to implant an ICD to shock my heart back into rhythm. This isn’t my first rodeo with having something stuck in my chest. I had a little heart monitoring unit stuck between my tits for nearly a year as part of a research study. But that little booger was removed after an experimental  procedure was done. But apparently since that was done, my hearts ability to pump has diminished to the point that I need a “jump start”.

Part of me wants to ask, “Is this necessary?” While another part of me asks, “How soon can I get this done?” Then the most feared words in American medicine were uttered by my Doctor, “Once approved by your insurance, then we can do the procedure.” It’s sad in a way that ones health in the United States is mostly determined not by a patient and doctor, but by a profit-driven business  bureaucracy. I guess I should thank my lucky stars that I’m considered profitable enough to get this done.

Other than the pure bureaucracy of it, it brings to mind the measure of my own worth. In other words, is this truly a necessary procedure? I mean, while I have been doing all this waiting around. I have had my episodes where my heart felt totally out of time. And there have been times where I pushed to such a point of exhaustion I could go no more. For me that is the toughest confession of all. So I’m going to trust my cardiologists and do what they think is best. The medications I have taken can do no more. So this is the next bridge to cross. And once again it’s a bridge I feel like I’m crossing alone. It’s sad to feel this way, but with my life experiences, it’s the dominating emotion I carry at the moment.