I have a dog named Buddy, but who knew I needed a heart buddy too?!
I woke up early one morning in March feeling strange, like is was fainting in my bed laying down, nauseated then throwing up. My husband called the ambulance and when they arrived and checked my heart rate it was 32! Into the ER we went!
Nine days before this - due to possibly having AFib, which never had been diagnosed, I had a small heart monitor implanted at Novant Health. Thanks to this device the doctors at the ER could quickly see that my heart hadn't been beating for up to 20 seconds- 10 times that night! To get a pacemaker the rule is no heartbeat for 3 seconds - I was truly a candidate!
So, the next day, Dr. Bazemore and his great heart team put in a pacemaker- my new heart buddy who I call " Pacy". We will be friends for life!
Pacy will monitor my heartbeats from now on and if needed will help trigger it to beat as it should so I will never have to worry about what happened in March will happen again.
I'm now back to my prior busy life and will forever be thankful to the cardiologists and wonderful staff at Novant Health who have made this all possible so my heart buddy " Pacy" and I can walk my little Buddy every day. :)
Also, my husband, Peter, had open heart surgery-triple bypass- in February this year and is feeling so much better after the operation so we have a double reason to be thankful and do the walk for our hearts!
I hope you will join/ donate to our team on October 18th at the UNCW campus in Wilmington to celebrate what amazing things are being done today, to raise awareness and to donate to research so even more can be achieved. One beat at a time!
Thank you so much for joining in and for helping me reach my goals!:-)
Christina
