My ICD implantation recovery

Days 8 to 22.

Mobility

One of the biggest challenges in recovering from the Implantable Cardiac Defribilator (ICD) device implantation procedure, was the instruction to not lift my arms above shoulder height for the first 2 weeks.

This meant no getting things out of any upper cabinets in the kitchen. It meant being unable to brush, wash or tie up my long hair by myself. It made putting on any shirts or dresses that pulled over my head basically impossible.

I found that button down shirts was the easiest in terms of self sufficient dressing. I had to re-evaluate my pajama choices to really baggy fit choices only.

My dearest husband helped me with my hair. This included him washing my hair for me. Far from the romantic images you might conjure up at this point (I was thinking Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore in Ghost) - this was more like my head going through a car wash. It was efficient and it was clean - thanks honey!

Apparently the historical advice was to also keep your left arm in a sling after the implantation procedure. However the doctors told me updated advice is to move your arm a little to encourage faster and better muscle healing.

The scar

After one week I visited my GP to have the wound dressing removed and to have her perform a wound check. After this point I could start showering on the wound, as long as I dried it really thoroughly after.

My scar looked pretty brutal for a while - until my first device check clinic to be honest. At which point I realised that a lot of what I was seeing was fluff on glue that I could have cleaned off (it required alcohol wipes to tackle this properly though, and I wasn't comfortable rubbing that hard on the wound myself.)

After a proper cleaning I was much happier with the size of the scar. It is about 4 cm long, and not too angry looking.

Preschooler head butts

One of the biggest challenges was supporting the almost 4-year old boy to understand that mummy had an ouchie that he wasn't allowed to jump on. This created a lot of sadness in our house. He constantly wanted to check on the scar to see how the ouchie was doing.

The ouchie was clearly interfering with his farvourite games - jumping on mummy and hugging mummy. It got a bit easier as the wound got better, but there was a lot of tears around this.

Even with it more settled now, he still somehow manages to find the edge of the device with his head as he comes in for a hug. It just feels like a little headbutt to the ICD every time. I love the hugs too much to stop him.

Sleeping positions

Another challenge with recovering from the ICD implantation was the feeling of the device inside my chest when sitting up or lying down in bed. Sleeping on my side was impossible for the first 2 or 3 weeks.

Eventually I felt that I could sleep on my left side comfortably without the device moving around too much. On my right side it still feels like the device is leaning out of the pocket where it is implanted, and it is just too weird and incredibly uncomfortable.

Emotions

There were almost as many emotional challenges in my recovery from the implantation as there was physical. I had a lot of fears that things I might be doing might be interfering with the ICD's magnets.

I was worried that the cooktop might be interfering with the device. I was paranoid about holding my phone just so, and well away from my body. Earphones and headsets created a lot of anxiety for me.

I went to a large Countdown supermarket with the husband and had a mini-anxiety attack when we were queuing at the check out. It felt incredibly closed in with a lot of machines and equipment that I had no idea what was in them that could be impacting me. I had to take a seat for a bit to compose myself.

I also had a little cry at our regular community swimming pool when the boy decided to jump into the pool into his dad's arms unassisted for the first time. What if I had missed this?

In short, a lot of my fear was about doing regular things. I also feared being alone in case something happened again or in case the device fired off a shock. This took a while to work through.

I looked into professional counselling for people with cardiac challenges, but there wasn't really anything specific available. There is a lot more support for people with cancer diagnosis-es. But that is a conversation for another day.

As they say: time heals all wounds.