Page 57 of Jam and Jingle Bells
Ellis shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of, but then I have moved around a lot in the last few years.”
“I checked and they did send notice, but it went to an address in Wyoming.”
Ellis sighed with resignation. “Wyoming? That was years ago. They won’t be forwarding from that address anymore.” He waved his hand. “Doesn’t matter, what happens when it gets recalled?”
“You get a new one, free of charge if we can prove it was defective because of the manufacturing. Just relax and we’ll take care of you and everything involved with the recall.”
“Why was his heart racing though? I mean it was fast,” I said, watching the machine to the side of his bed.
The doctor nodded and pointed to where it said his pulse was ninety-six. “I’m pretty sure that was just a result of the constant shocking. It’s uncomfortable and eventually, the heart muscle gets aggravated. We tried to interrogate the device, but it wouldn’t respond, so we shut it off and we’re managing his heart rate with medication for now. We need to get this replaced immediately.”
Ellis squeezed my hand and spoke to the doctor. “Can you do it here or do I need to go out to a different hospital?”
“No, we can do it here and when I say immediately, I mean as soon as Loretta can scrub in with me.”
My eyes widened and I glanced between the three of them. “Right now?”
Doctor Morgen nodded in all seriousness. “Right now. The device worked well for him and every hour that it isn’t pacing him is more medication we have to give him. I’d rather he was being paced than rely on the medication. If he goes into an arrhythmia the medication can’t control, I don’t want to open his chest again to do heart massage with those leads in there.”
“Will you have to replace the leads, too?” Ellis asked. “They told me when they put this one in that the device change was a simple procedure unless the leads had to be changed.”
He held up his finger and grabbed a tablet on the bedside table. “The CT scan tells us that the leads are still in the right place.” He showed us Ellis’s chest and it was shocking to see the entire device and the leads in his heart. “What this can’t tell us is if the lead is broken here,” he said pointing where it plugged into the device, “or further down the line somewhere. It may not be the lead at all. It may be a broken connector on the device, in which case we can leave the lead in and just replace the ICD.”
“You’re saying you won’t know until you do the surgery,” Ellis said and he nodded.
“We’re going to give you general anesthesia in case we do have to replace the leads. I want you to be comfortable and Loretta will make sure of it. With any luck, we can change out the device, sew you up, and get you out of here. I would suggest in the future, you avoid toddlers with snow boots.”
Ellis laughed and nodded at the same time. “Freak thing, right?”
Dr. Morgen rested his hand on his shoulder. “I’ve seen a lot of freak things in this business. We can take care of this and get you back on your feet in a few days.”
My mom did her assessment required by anesthesia before handing the clipboard back to Dr. Morgen to sign. He held the pen out to Ellis.
“You’ll have to give permission for both the device replacement and lead replacement.”
“You really think I broke a lead, don’t you?” he asked, hesitantly taking the pen.
“It’s possible it’s just a bad battery since we couldn’t get any information from the device, so let’s not borrow trouble until we get in there and look at the parts as a whole. This consent form has everything on it we might have to do when we get in there. We can’t wake you up in the middle of it to ask you if it’s okay. Make sense?”
Ellis nodded and signed the form before resting back on the pillow. “You have to get me up and running again by next Saturday.”
Dr. Morgen gave my mom a copy of the papers. “Next Saturday? Big date?” he asked, a grin on his face.
Ellis nodded and his eyes twinkled. “Yeah, with about four hundred kids from Bells Pass. Santa doesn’t get a sick day.”
My mom and the doctor both left the room chuckling, promising the nurse would be in to get him ready for surgery. I pulled the chair up to his bed and rested my hand on his chest over the wires, tape, and pads, my other hand holding his.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” I whispered, my gaze holding his. “You scared the crap out of me.”
His hand came up to trace my jaw. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. The whole thing took me by surprise.”
“Don’t apologize,” I whispered. “You didn’t know. I’m resilient, I’ll be okay. I’m worried about you right now.”
“You heard the doc, a simple in and out. I might need to take you up on that offer of a room, though. The last time I had this done it took a couple of days to sit up without help.” He pointed at the long scar on his chest and winked, which meant even as he faced surgery again, he was joking with me.
“You got it. I’ll get a bed in there and you can stay as long as you need to. We can’t have Santa worrying about where he’ll lay his head at night.”
He smiled and caressed my face. “Don’t go to any trouble. I can sleep on the couch. I’m more worried about my business. If I can’t teach, I can’t make money.”
