FUBAR = Not. My. Fault.

I was prepared to assume my problems with my event monitor (you did read the previous post, right?) were my fault. I tell everybody that machines hate me, that my being in a check-out line means something is going to go wrong, and sometimes even surprise myself at my failure to navigate tech-speak as if it were a foreign language and I had the language-speaking skills of a 70-year-old.

OK, that last bit is true. About being 70, that is. I will never speak fluent tech.

We started off fine, I thought, with the first incarnation of monitor wearing, care, and feeding, etc. In preparation for switching day and night monitors so each got a chance to charge, I dutifully pulled out the manual and read every bit necessary to perform the task, at least as they wrote it. Most reassuring was the troubleshooting section with an 800- phone number. Heck, they even gave the prompts for which number buttons to push to navigate their voicemail system to arrive quickly and without having to guess which selection to pick for the right department.

I almost have that number memorized already. No big surprise that I should, since I've been talking to them for a combined total of over 2 hours.

Honestly, I thought I had it nailed. I mean, the second reminder via phone text that what I was wearing didn't have complete skin contact and my finally figuring out one of the snaps wasn't actually snapped was real progress. And no mea culpa, this part had been done in the cardiologist's office to their satisfaction before I even walked out the door, so I deny all responsibility for anything except it taking two notices to me for me to figure out that "no skin contact" wasn't actually referring the the skin contact with the adhesive patch, but it's hookup to the monitor.

Go figure.

Switching over to the evening monitor and charging the daytime monitor seemed to go smoothly. Lights that are supposed to go on or off did so in the correct series, colors, and locations on the equipment. I knew this time I was hooked up properly and charging was happening as scheduled. It was bedtime. I complied....zzzzzz.

Morning was time to take off the old patch and, post-shower, put on a new one. I had somewhere to be and a time to be there, so I figured adding in an extra 45 minutes to the routine should be sufficient.

Not so much.

The old patch, the one with the adhesive I'm allergic to, comes off in the shower. Apparently it needs water to keep it from resticking because that sucker really clings! And hey, no problem properly locating the spot for the replacement (non-allergic this time) to go because I could just put it directly over the big red welt on my chest. After, that is, using rubbing alcohol to remove any adhesive residue, and no worries that that, in turn, would eliminate the welt for days and cause any sort of confusion. Because it hasn't.

There is a special extra process one goes through when a shower is part of the monitor's routine. The manual kinda explains it. It involves extra steps with the smartphone from the system since you will likely get more than 10 feet away from it and be broadcasting a signal equivalent to total lack of heartbeat with its disconnection from the body. One doesn't need the EMTs dashing into your shower to revive you.

OK, I don't.

In going through that phone menu of the to-do list, I was informed that there was no signal. Whatsoever. Before anything had gotten disconnected. I double checked all skin contact and snap contact, idly wondering all the while why there had been no kind of an alert that the patient had died. I tried several times to complete the steps needed to pause the monitor before switching over, but of course you can't stop something that's never started.

Seems logical.

But I was in a bit of time pressure and really needing that shower, so I called that troubleshooting number. We tried this. That. This again. That again, plus three more thats. Even if I could describe them to you - it was directions like hit the double arrow- they would be meaningless. Suffice it to say that I was given the OK to omit putting it on pause, and just put new patch and monitor on and push its start button after I was dry again. forty-five minutes eaten up just on the phone call, and that's not counting the procedures before and after off-phone.

Yep, running late. Late to the shower. Late for my day.

Bedtime again, everything hunky dory. Morning comes, and ... !!!!! That nighttime monitor never hooked into the system AGAIN! Time for another phone call. About 45 minutes and two people later, it was finally determined - HORRAY! VINDICATION! - that the company had sent out one incorrect monitor. The system is set up so the phone needs the serial number of each monitor to match what it's programmed to hook up to before it can transmit any info out. It'll search until it finds the right one. Hell will freeze over and stop global warming in the process before it ever finds that monitor within the required 10 feet of it in my neck of the world.

They would send me out another complete system ASAP. Being Sunday, the definition of ASAP was ambiguous and the tech I was speaking with  had no answer to "when?"

On the plus side, I guess, I now know a whole lot more about navigating their equipment and procedures that I ever wanted to know or dreamed I might need. I can tell you, since this is neither proprietary info nor geek-speak, that the serial number is one set of about 800 alphanumeric characters printed on the back of a 2"x2" piece of equipment, located wherever there were no snaps. The teck could give me no hint as to its location, how many numbers and/or letters might be in it, or how young my eyes actually had to be to find it in order to determine if the equipment matched. I can now tell you the to-you-useless piece of information that it is located approximately a hair lower than the center and is preceded with an equally hard to find "SN".

So far the replacement hasn't arrived. No worries, however. That red skin welt still shows exactly where to position the next patch when I do hook up again.

FYI: Should all the above details be confusing, I could give you the troubleshooting phone number for further explanation. However, I'm pretty sure I'll be monopolizing it myself.