Shocking Episodes (not the Perfectly Normal webseries episode… yet)
It didn’t take long for me to experience my first episode of my ICD since its implementation – three months to be exact. The hospital didn’t inform me well on living with an ICD – they felt the only essentials I needed were a pack of pamphlets and prescription for an advanced aspirin – so I left the hospital with the assumption of being able to press the play/resume button. Little did I know that my device comes with this limitation of how fast my heart can beat, and the activities I resumed would lead to exceeding this limitation which cause my ICD to kick into an episode.
AN EPISODE: a series of shocks stemming from the heart rate exceeding a given threshold (measured in beats per minute) to prevent severe cardiac issues, i.e. cardiac arrest. An episode can range from the “one-hitter quitter,” a single jolt to the heart to stun the heart and knock the person unconscious to stop heart activity altogether, and the “annoying Chun-li sputter kicks,” aka “the moment when a gamer first finds out how to do a fighting move (Chun-li kicks, Ryu uppercuts, Liu Kang kicks, Scorpion spear attacks) and keeps doing it to you for the rest of the game,” a set of small shocks (5-7 total) delivered in intervals (20-30 seconds apart) to stun the heart to slow the heart rate. Each shock feels like a hard kick to the chest. Just imagine standing still, and Jackie Chan jumps towards you, feet first. At least, that’s how the first couple shocks feel like. I’ve thankfully yet to know what the one-hitter feels like.
My first episode came at a horrific time – my niece’s car accident. I was with my family at an annual weekend-long motorcycle rally in Atlanta when my nephew got a text from his aunt that Shundra (my niece) died in a car accident. We were about half a mile away from the RV site where Shundra’s father and my sister were. We began running through the field until I became winded and sat down on a generator surrounded by a bunch of RVs. At the time, I didn’t know a generator could shock me. I leapt off of it and ran, panicking at the shock, when the defibrillator shocked me again. I fell, still oblivious to what was going on. A family member ran back to me to see why I fell and was yelling. A young buck, 17 years old, who I have to depend on to tell him what’s wrong and what to do – oh. Brother. After the third shock I tell him I have a defibrillator that is shocking me and to call 9-1-1. He kept asking what a defibrillator was instead of calling 9-1-1, which made me laugh but also made me worry – the last thing I need to do when getting shocked. He finally calls, sounding more panicked than I was, as I tried to breathe deeply to slow the heart rate. My mother finally found me and told me my sister and her husband left to be with my niece’s mother in Perry, an hour and a half away from Atlanta. We were taken by EMTs to the hospital, stranded once the ICD specialist completed his investigation, until my sister’s friend came to pick us up.
I could hardly wrap my head around her death. She was 17. Before she had the chance to live her life, it was taken away. Meanwhile, here I was with my life saved, my time prolonged until God knows when and her time was shortened before mine was ever even threatened. I sat in the hospital crying out of frustration and confusion as to why I was spared and in – what felt like at the time – such a miserable lifestyle.
My second one was when I was with my ResLife staff for my RA orientation. We played beach volleyball the night before, and I made it through three games effortlessly and joyously. This night, however, only lasted 5-10 minutes before I was on the ground instructing my cohorts what to do.
The second episode became very discouraging and confusing for me as an active person. Before going into cardiac arrest, I would try to go to the gym five times a week. Throughout my middle and high school years I started on the basketball team. I would hoop year-round, playing AAU basketball, and then street ball once there was no more organized ball to play. I was the active auntie, horsing around with my nieces and nephews, and the friend that encouraged all tomfoolery, roaming the hometown for mischief and the next petty thrill. All that changed when I got my defibrillator.
Getting shocked is the most obvious presence of the ICD. Other than someone touching or bumping your chest, you would forget it’s there. It is a constant reminder of the seriousness of this condition. It’s hard to identify with. The day after my second episode during a staff team builder, I told my staff I felt like a dog that wears an invisible leash, roaming the yard thinking I was free until I crossed the unmarked border.
Getting shocked is the instantaneous pain coming from a mental freedom to a physical restriction that no one told me about. Right now I’m working on maintaining a free mind, un-cuffing it from the fright of shock. Perfectly Normal is here to be the initial step in therapy for the broken mentality stemming from things associated with having an ICD.
We begin shooting for the webseries next week, and I couldn’t be more excited! Details coming soon…
