Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Doll Parts

My family has a beach house that we rent out during the summer. The main living room as two sofas that are pretty comfortable, except for a couple of the arms. The cushioning has disintegrated and you can feel the hard wooden structure beneath the the blue and green striped fabric. Don't tell anyone.

I bring this up because almost eight months post-op, the swelling has subsided, but the wires are poking through. The third wire juts out right along the new scar and then disappears under the my chest muscle and sternum and reemerges on the other side. I feel like a doll or a stuffed animal who's exterior has been worn down to the core. My stuffing as been slowly seeping out and my wires are protruding. Even though the wires are new, it makes me feel old, like I'm falling apart and here are the nuts and bolts that are holding me together.

As of right now, I have four different metal devices keeping my heart working: a biventricular ICD, a mechanical aortic valve, and two titanium VSD occluders. Not to mention the three wires.

VSD occluder- a small metal device used to plug up a ventricular septal defect

ventricular septal defect- a defect in the septum between the right and left ventricles; commonly called a "hole"; most common heart defect in a newborn (www.americanheart.org)

Sometimes I just feel like a robot.