I’m no Dick Tracy… (but I do wear an Apple Watch)

From my earliest days, I have been aware of smart watches.  Detective Dick Tracy wore a version of a smart watch and communicated with police headquarters via a two-way radio/watch in the 1960’s version of the daily Dick Tracy comic strip.  The concept of communicating through a wristwatch was a futuristic dream for children born during the Eisenhower administration, but then, there have been a lot of technological breakthroughs during the next sixty years…

Fast forward to the present day.  I have become deaf in the past few years. To help me adjust to the silence around me, one of my children bought me an Apple Watch.  Now, when I receive a text message, the watch vibrates to alert me to the incoming message.  It is also linked with my doorbell and when a visitor arrives, a message appears on the screen indicating that ‘someone is at your door’.  Very handy for a deaf guy…

I am doing a disservice to Apple Watches here.  There are many really nice features available to those wearing an Apple Watch, but the doorbell and text messages have been the most prominently used benefits for this wearer…until now.

On the Friday before Memorial Day, I returned to my home office late in the day to do some computer work.  I was not feeling my best that day, a little light-headed and sluggish, but I had attributed those symptoms to the aftereffects of donating blood.  On Wednesday of that week, I stopped by the American Red Cross and donated my 265^th unit of blood and, when I was feeling a bit droopy afterward, I just assumed that my symptoms were a result of that donation.

I settled into an office chair and pulled up my email.  I was responding via email to a customer when my watch vibrated and flashed a message. 

‘Your heart rate has been below forty beats per minute for ten minutes.’

1. I did not realize until that moment that my Apple Watch was monitoring my heart rate.

2. I had no idea what the consequences of a heart rate below forty indicated.

A quick Google search indicated that I should seek some medical help.  Maybe not the best decision of my life, but since my wife was out of town at a conference, I drove myself to my doctor’s office (less than a mile away).  I explained to the receptionist at the doctor’s office that I was deaf, alone (my wife was out of town), and that my heart rate was under forty beats per minute.  She responded quickly and I was soon getting an EKG.

The physician on call that afternoon shared the news with me.  I would need to get to the nearest emergency room, and I should expect to be admitted.  He typed a note to me telling me that I should plan on staying at the hospital until I received a pacemaker. He made a call to one of my daughters and explained the situation.  She arranged transportation to the hospital.  Friends met me at the hospital and stayed with me until my daughter arrived.

I was admitted; my low heart rate sent me to ICU for monitoring during the holiday weekend, and on the Tuesday after Memorial Day, I received a pacemaker.

Today the cardiologist gave me a post-op exam and cleared me to resume normal activities. What a crazy turn of events! I am truly blessed. I’m no Dick Tracy, (but I do wear an Apple Watch) and after having time to contemplate such things over a long weekend in ICU … I think you should too!

Thanks for listening!

Your friend,

KBM

Kevin Medlin
kevin@mysilentpew.com