#Pacemaker | Anita Dawes & Jaye Marie ~ Authors

Life in the Dawes household is on a knife edge now, as the date for Anita’s next and hopefully successful visit to the hospital draws ever nearer.

They plan to be fitting Anita with a pacemaker/defibrillator on Wednesday next week to persuade her poor old heart to start behaving normally. In preparation, we have been bombarded with a cart load of instructions, safety checks and medication updates.

There is so much to remember, and even more information that we really didn’t need, but you know doctors, they must tell you everything, including, in great detail, everything that could go wrong.

Me personally, I like to know what might happen to me, even the bad stuff, but Anita would rather not dwell on that side if things. She hasn’t said as much, but I know she would rather carry on as she is, even with all the breathlessness and fatigue, than walk into that hospital again. If we do get her there, she will be doing it for us, her family and not for herself.

So when the consultant began to describe, in detail, about how he would be feeding several wires through her veins into and around her heart, and that she would be awake while this was all going on, I could clearly see her having second thoughts.

He then made a tricky moment even worse by rattling off everything bad that could happen while she was on the table. Anita didn’t need him to describe everything she would hear and feel either. I could tell by her face that she desperately wanted to tell him she had changed her mind.

Apart from childbirth some fifty years ago and a broken leg a while back, Anita hasn’t had much to do with doctors and hospitals. Just by osmosis through me and all my many medical problems. For sisters, we couldn’t be more different, even though we look alike…

So, understandably, she is becoming extremely nervous and hating every minute. It wouldn’t take much to have her making for the hills!

These next few days will be an extreme test of everyone’s patience, tact, and diplomacy as we all try to convince ourselves and each other that everything will be fine. Anita will have a Covid test on Sunday and be confined to barracks until the day we leave for the hospital…

Yes, the Wonder Woman has returned!

And looking surprisingly well after her ordeal and determined to carry on where she left off before the proverbial stuff hit the fan.

Anita also came home with even more medication than last time, plus a daily injection, all of which to be carefully administered by little old me.

We also have a new set of worries, due mainly to the fact that Anita is still not fixed, not quite yet. It will take a pacemaker to do that. Her heart must settle down first, clear the rather large clot that is preventing the left side of her heart from working properly, and recover enough for a pacemaker to be possible.

This requires an intense regime of blood thinners and warfarin, a nasty drug that needs constant monitoring and blood tests. All worth it if the pacemaker returns Anita to full health!

Turns out it wasn’t a second heart attack after all. Due to the massive damage the first one caused and the presence of a large clot inside Anita’s heart, it just couldn’t cope. It stopped minutes after we arrived at the emergency department. Luckily, they managed to bring her back, but it was touch and go for a while.

Apparently, the first heart attack was what they like to call the widow maker because it is usually fatal.

So the fact Anita is here at all is miraculous and something we are all grateful for…