thanksgiving

Thanksgiving. Wow. The Sudden Cardiac Arrest was 9/5/09 and my birthday is tomorrow (11/25). They say you should begin to celebrate your SCA date as your 'second birthday', and I fully understand that. Beats the hell out of the alternative....

I have a new favorite SCA story. I was trying to gather as much information as I could on defibrillators' firing. And you find the gamut - people whose devices have never fired, one guy who has lived through over 50 firings (I admit I clicked off his post as quickly as i could). We want some reassurance that either it won't happen or we will survive it if it does. My new favorite:

- A woman was at a party and had just finished a dance. She had not over-exerted herself, but was on her way into the house for some water. She was about to open the glass door and saw a dear friend about to open it for her from the other side. And Bam - the defibrillator fired. Her first thought was "Oh my God, my friend has shot me!". We don't know quite why this is so funny, but it is. She went on to say that she did not lose consciousness (wonderful to hear), she did not fall to the ground and was able to maintain her balance (really wonderful to hear), it only lasted a few seconds (whew!), BUT she did pee. (Yikes, but good to know!).

I told this story to a friend who began to critique what passes for humor in this zone. And I chided him - we have to look really really far and wide to find SCA humor and we CANNOT be picky about what we find.

I love the woman for posting the story, and I love the story.

Happy day-before-the-birthday. The "natural" birthday.

Naming our implanted devices

I have named my defibrillator "Skippy" - little tiny dude with little tiny paddles ready to squeak "clear" as needed. Someone suggested I name him something more profound or dramatic like Phoenix from the ashes. I said I had plenty of drama around all this without that type of statement. i was looking for something a little more friendly or lighthearted (no pun intended).

Then i posted to SCA - the online community for Sudden Cardiac Arrest - and yes, many people name their devices. We anthropomorphize to humanize it all or make it seem somewhat more gentle, I suppose.

My favorites from my like-hearted souls - one inexplicably calls hers "Eleanor" but my favorite of all - Trigger. Not sure why I like it so much but I do

Trigger and Skippy - telling.