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Okay, let’s get back to normal with an episode of Name That Game!
I really wanted to like this game. It was a first-person fantasy RPG at a time when there weren’t that many of them and it was billed as the spiritual successor to a defunct line of famous first-person RPGs. But I couldn’t like it because the control scheme was awful and unfixable.
Name and developer, please! Bonus points if you can tell me what RPG series this game was supposed to be the followup to.
Okay. Here’s what happened.
If you’ll recall, back in February my cardiologists implanted a defibrillator in me because they ascertained that I was susceptible to tachycardia (fast heartbeat) in my heart. They also implanted a stent into an artery that looked like it wasn’t getting sufficient blood.
On Thursday, October 16th, just after I arrived at work I started to feel lightheaded and cold. A couple of waves of this passed over me.
Then my defibrillator went off.
When I’d had it put in, I’d been told that being shocked by it was similar to being kicked by a mule. This is pretty accurate. The worst part was that for a second I didn’t know what had happened. All I knew was that I’d involuntarily yelled an obscenity and the mouse that had been in my hand was now on the floor.
Then it hit me two more times and I quickly asked my poor traumatized office mates to call an ambulance for me.
The paramedics determined that my defibrillator hadn’t actually managed to get my heartbeat back to normal – it was still going very fast. They finally had to give me medication to get me “converted” back to normal heartbeat.
So now I was back in the hospital. The doctors monitored me closely for two days and nothing happened, so they ended up prescribing me a new medication that would regulate my heart and released me on Sunday, October 19th.
Less than six hours later I got in the car to go pick up my prescription. The defibrillator went off again while I was driving. It shocked me four times. Fortunately I was still in my apartment complex, so I was able to stop the car and yell for help, and my neighbors called for the paramedics.
But the paramedics didn’t actually get me converted back to normal heartbeat in the ambulance, and after I arrived at the hospital it shocked me about seven more times.
This time the doctors decided to perform a procedure called an ablation, where they burn part of the heart that they believe is responsible for the faulty signal that creates the tachycardia. They performed the procedure, kept me about three more days, then released me.
Less than twenty-four hours later, it went off again – despite the fact that I’d been “taking it easy”. I’d just gotten out of the bathroom when I felt lightheaded, etc…I could tell it was coming, though I hoped it wouldn’t. But it did anyway.
Back to the hospital.
This time the doctors decided to look at what might have changed in my heart to cause this, and discovered that my heart muscles (which are unusually thick) had pushed the stent they implanted back in February partially closed. They went back in and opened it up, as well as put me on some stronger medication. Then they released me.
Needless to say, I took it very, very easy for the first two days – hardly getting out of bed. But eventually I had to. Since then I’ve become more active, almost back up to my normal level…and nothing has happened.
Part of me wants to believe that I’m okay now. But as you might can guess, part of me is still a bit traumatized about what happened.
As some of you may have surmised, I’ve been back in the hospital for heart problems. I’m not in the mood to tell the story because I don’t know if it’s over yet. But I did want to let you guys know that I’m okay right now.