CARDIOVERSION, THE HOME VERSION

During my recent bout with Artial Fibulation and trip to the hospital to jump-start my heart, I had some weird ideas floating around in my head. I remembered SNL and the late hilarious Chris Farley, when he was doing the motivational speaker guy and he felt his weekly heart attack coming on; he would take both fists and pound his chest to restart his own heart.

"your gonna be livin in a trailer down by the river"

This is called the “pericardial thump”, we learned how to do this in Army BCT, but it’s usually preformed by another person on an unconscious victim. Farley was funny as hell and this was always my favorite skit; too bad he enjoyed doing hardcore drugs more than he enjoyed living.

I thought about the procedure I was about to go through for the second time in 10 months; they were going to take me down to that special room again. The room is full of things like crash carts, heart sonograms, needles full of adrenalin, breathing tubes and P.O.S.  razors that pull the hair out of your chest instead of cutting it.

They first spray numbing medicine in your throat then squirt goo in your mouth that you swallow that numbs your throat even more. Then they inject you with Versed more or less a date rape drug because you can’t remember a damn thing after it kicks in. They put the ultrasonic device down your throat to look at the special little place in your heart where a blood clot can form if you have been in A-fib too long. If it’s all clear, they knock you completely out and stick a paddle on your back and one on your chest and shock your heart back into rhythm, hopefully.

I was lying in the hospital bed the night before the procedure was to take place and I was laughing to myself about the Chris Farley’s self induced pericardial thump and I thought; hmmm, I wonder???? I do have a stun gun at home. Now before I go on with the rest of this story let me be crystal clear; I would never, I repeat, never really try this. Are you listening Rita? Don’t go calling Nurse Ratched on me! But the repair technician in me just wondered what if in a pinch, say there was a nuclear war and all the hospitals were wiped out and a guy went into A-fib and he had a stun gun at home. You know where I’m going with this.

I had my trusty notebook computer with me and just for shits and giggles, I was blue-skying this home cardioversion procedure, so I googled the cardioversion process again and read in more detail what happens when several thousand low amped volts zap your heart.

Apparently your heart stops beating! For a few seconds, then it reboots itself and starts beating again, this time hopefully in sinus rhythm.

 beat, beat, come on damn you beat!

Hmmmm time to table this idea of the home version of the cardio version, especially since they had to shock my heart 3 times the next morning to get the damned thing to work right.

I could just see everybody at the funeral home talking the way they do when they are trying to figure out what happened to the departed. “ I don’t know, I heard they found him by the work bench in his garage laying on the floor with a stun gun in his hand. The police thought he may have been fighting off an intruder and had a heart attack. Why else would he be holding a stun gun? God that’s weird, but doesn’t he look natural laying there?”

In closing let me repeat; RITA, I WOULD NEVER TRY THIS AT HOME, THIS STORY IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY, RITA! DON’T TELL JOJO ON ME!

Whooo, so having made this disclaimer; let me say, some things are best left to the professionals. I have learned over the years I can’t fix everything around me that breaks.

And this stun gun DIY project would never work. Probably, wouldn’t work, No, no, no it couldn’t work, but what if??????  I wonder if it’s ever been tried before? Hmmm, I think I will google that.

Cardio version for dummies