Pacemaker "Recall"

The third week of May I received a message from Dr. Buck at UNC. He said that he had been contacted by Medtronic about issues with Grace’s pacemaker, and he would like to speak with me about our options. As it turns out, Grace’s current pacemaker, implanted in July 2002, is affected by Medtronic’s current advisory (http://www.medtees.com/blog/MedtronicKappaSigmaAdvisory.pdf). Essentially it is a“recall.” Even though the failure rate has only been .5% and for the life of her pacemaker it is 3.9%, we decided it is best to replace it. She is not pacemaker dependent; however, her underlying heart rate is quite low. Also, we have worked hard not to make her pacemaker an issue, I do not want us to become hypervigilant now.

Grace was noticeably shaken from the news of her surgery. Her Dad is in Afghanistan, which makes it tougher. She was initially quite frightened, but I have showed her diagrams and talked about the procedure. No leads need to be replaced, so it should be simple. The only unusual item will be the removal of pacemaker number one, which is still in her abdomen area. When she received pacemaker number two, pacemaker number one was left in since she was only a toddler. Grace seems emotionally better. I know we are in good hands at UNC. Dr. Mark Mill will be performing the surgery (http://findadoc.unchealthcare.org/directory/mill).

As a good side note: we switched pediatricians again. When we went in to get a referral, the new pediatrician was amazed at where Grace was on the growth chart. She is now in the 94th percentile for height (4'10") and 69th percentile for weight! So much for all the people telling me how small she was as an infant!

I will keep you updated on our surgery as we get closer...