Pacer Chick

My name is Jessica and I live in Michigan.

     I first started showing signs of Neurocardiogenic Syncope when I was five years old. I wasn’t feeling good that day, but my parents just thought I was trying to get out of going to church. I went to Sunday School and asked to go to the bathroom; I fainted in the hallway and stayed there until one of the church members got me up. They phoned my mom and she came to pick me up, and she was confused to what happened to me.

     The first seizure I ever had was when I was eight. I had broken my arm, and was getting my cast taken off. And as soon as the whirring saw hit the cast I passed out and had a grand maul seizure. I remember waking up to my older sister, younger sister, and mother screaming. After this episode, it confused the doctor’s more because they didn’t know what was going on inside my body. They thought it was epilepsy, but that got ruled out soon enough. Then they automatically assumed it was all in my head and all emotionally because I was beginning to show signs of depression.

     When I was eleven, my doctor decided to give me a tilt table, the test I hate more than anything. On the first tilt, I went completely out. The monitors showed that I was basically dead, because everything in my body shut down. I remained this way for 17 seconds until I was finally revived. They then decided to put in a pacemaker, and right after that test I was sent to the hospital and three days later they implanted the pacemaker. I ended up staying at the hospital for two weeks because I had allergic reactions to the medications and was having a lot of trouble.

     I was fine for four years after that, until I started getting sick again. On March 13 2001, I went to my doctor and they decided to replace my current pacemaker with a newer model. The surgery was scheduled for March 15, the next Thursday, that panicked me. This surgery lasted longer because my old pacemaker had moved and he literally had to cut and dig through to get it. I was only in the hospital for three days because I made myself get up and walk so I could show them I was ready to go home. And a week later I was back on my feet and back in school.

     This is only a brief glimpse into the life I have had to live for the past 12 years. Although it has been hard I have tried to live well and be a strong person and remain positive through all I have been through. NCS is a disorder that not too many people understand because you can’t really see the effects it has on a person until they have a spell. With this, it makes it very hard to get sympathy or anything else because people, even your own doctor’s think you are faking it. It gets discouraging sometimes, but you still feel you have to fight. And I have been fighting, and I will continue to.