The Things We Name

We name hurricanes;  we do not name tornadoes.  Many of us, if not most of us, name our implanted defibrillators.   Their technical and proper name is implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD).  Sigh.  We lighten that up a bit.
I used to think we named hurricanes because each is with us a relatively long time; we watch their development from tropical depression to storm to adulthood.  But if it were just for keeping track, we could simply number them each year.  We name them instead;  I think we have our reasons.

I  think it's essentially the same reason we name our ICD's - to anthropomorphize them, to de-mystify them, and mostly to dis-empower them.  We want to see the ICD's as pets, as family members --- as anything but what they are.  Anything but some foreign object sitting there with wires into my heart.  Wires that will 'defibrillate' if my heart stops beating again.  Translation = shock the crap out of me.

That first day after the Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA), it is hard, hard, hard to digest this whole, new story.  To process it into something we can live with without being breathlessly terrified.   (I wish I could say I was proud of how I worked through it, but I believe I lacked grace.)  When I came to and they told me I had SCA, that my heart had stopped and that I was lucky to be alive, that I had gotten three shocks with the big-boy defibrillator paddles to restart it --- when they told me this, I think I gracelessly said something like  "What the F are you talking about?  Are you in the right room?"

We SCA survivors all grapple with it -  "what do you mean my heart just stopped beating?  And had to be shocked back?  Did I die?  Am I going to die again now?".   Then we hear the statistics - 95% + of people who have SCA die that day.  We can't breathe with that one.  We have tests, scans, bad food, terrified visitors.  I had so many questions that I couldn't formulate a single question.  I didn't understand why I didn't feel sick. Those 4 days in the hospital are a haze. I remember pieces, and I'm sure I have the sequence wrong.  Purely one foot in front of the other.  Friday you are a normal healthy person; Saturday your heart stops for no reason.  And somehow you survive that.  You slog through that. One beat at a time.

I gave consent for the ICD I had never heard of before; I gave consent to this thing going into my chest and into my heart.  It's in there forever.  It may or may not shock the stuffing out of me one day.
But on the night it was implanted, all I wanted  - and I wanted it desperately -- all I wanted was for this "it" not to be an "it".  This was a part of my life; I had a new body part.  I needed "it" to be a he or a she or a me. The next morning, I began searching for names --- I wanted a benign name.  Something I could handle, something that might make me smile.  Something that might make other people laugh.  Something I could live with.  Something that wouldn't terrify me.  And Skippy was born.  Skippy doesn't sound like a scary ICD;  Skippy sounds like a puppy.  Skippy will help; Skippy won't ruin me.  Skippy will be like Lassie.   Sort of.  He is my dis-empowered defibrillator.

I have since learned that many, many people feel this same need to humanize their ICD.   I have met (or e-met) people who have come up with an astonishing array of names:  Timex, Elizabeth, Popper --- and my all time favorite - Trigger.  I love these people, and I love the names.

I've got a roommate.  He lives in my chest wall.  Tornadoes are always destructive.  Hurricanes - sometimes they destroy and sometimes they don't.  The named storms are not always ruinous.