Cardiac Chronicles, continued

I get my implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) on Monday. It's an ingenious little gadget, weighing only 70 grams and 12.9 mm thick. Your average chicken egg weighs 70 grams. The belt holding up my pants is about 12.9 mm thick.

The docs will cut a slit just beneath my left collarbone, slip some leads through the vein to my heart, connect the leads to the gadget, jump-start the ICD (they told me to bring my jumper cables), sew me up and send me away, a new man. Partially new, anyway.

The ICD will correct dangerous arrhythmias and prevent sudden cardiac death. I'm at risk for these because my heart muscles sustained some damage when I had my Christmas holiday heart attack. Sudden cardiac death is what people mean when they say "He dropped dead from a heart attack. Boom -- just like that!"  

Boom -- just like that.

Not me, thanks. Not now.

Got a lot of living left to do.