Fubar. Rinse. Repeat.

Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.

Yes, I'm back to whining about the cardiac monitoring system, the one I was to wear for three weeks. Like a lot of wanna-be-great ideas, the concept was much better than the execution. In fact, it was the execution which made me want to also. Execute somebody, that is. Maybe just a little?

Quick refresher: The first system was sent out with the wrong parts so they didn't communicate with each other. It also came with medical adhesive which I'm allergic to. Many many phone conversations with the company tech reps later, it was sent back - on their dime - and replaced, with  my three-week trial to start over at no extra cost to me.

One might be tempted to believe this replacement was the perfect solution, right? Well, say your prayers and resist that temptation, folks.

These parts actually did talk to each other this time. Just, not back to the company keeping track of - supposedly - my every little heartbeat and electronic squiggle. But hey, who doesn't want the chance to talk to another dozen or so company reps in the attempt to find a fix for this problem?

Turns out I'm not quite that lonely. Nor am I quite so fond of the sound of my own voice that I delight in explaining from the very beginning to each and every one of them what the problem is and what we've gone through so far to try to fix it all. I'm not even so full of myself that I can believe all those moderately competent reps are thrilled at mimicking polite interest in my issues as the irritation creeps (creeps? Hell!) into my voice more audibly with each passing hour on the phone.

I'd already been through enough calls with the reps that I had a fair familiarity of what the different steps and menus were for. There were times I was even a couple steps ahead of the company staff in procedures. I already knew, for example, which numbers on my equipment they needed and where they were to be found amid all the screen info. I knew before they asked that my problem was not because I was inside a building or in the wrong part of the building because nothing, inside or out, made a difference. I also get to explain that no, Sun City, Arizona, suburb of Phoenix, was not in a rural area!!!! Just to tweak them at this point I would even tell them how cell towers here were "disguised" as palm trees and how easily they stood out anyway. I even knew how many blocks - not miles, blocks - it was to the next several fake palms. And heck, no, there isn't even one of our mini-mountains in between to block the signal.

Yep, bases covered on that point, eh?

Eventually, we figured out that going through the "restart" process on my phone would reconnect it to whichever cell tower was around. It just wouldn't stay connected. Up in the corner of the tool bar on the phone screen there was a little tiny print message that would flash after about two minutes of being connected, saying "invalid sim card". It was so brief that if I wasn't watching right then I would miss it. The phone wouldn't, however. As the message dropped off the screen, the connection to a cell tower also dropped.

Every time.
Rinse.
Repeat.

I'd know the cell was failing to reconnect for it's next download because the phone gets worn hooked on my waistband, and it vibrates.

Whee.

So I get to pull it off, slide off the cover, hit restart, watch it reboot, relocate me, do its little song and dance to figure out it was trying to connect to send data, and finally send data. Or as much as it could before the connection shut down again, having discovered yet again that its sim card was suddenly invalid after having worked for it's allotted two minutes.

OK, I'm guessing at the two minute limit. It might have been a minute forty-three, or two minutes seventeen. I never actually dug out a stopwatch. I just knew it happened. I also knew how much I cared to fix it versus ignoring it for a couple extra hours.

I could pop in and out of menus, follow how many bytes of data were left to send, check the percent of connection to my monitor at any given time. Really, I could.

Doesn't mean I wanted to. Just means I was competent at it. I knew what the phone was telling me. Big whoop.

Today, April 1st, is my last scheduled day on the monitoring system. I actually wore the damned thing for 46 minutes into the day. They implied I'd have it for 24 hours, and was to send it back on the 2nd.  I decided my sleep was more important. The danged thing took so much time and gave so  much frustration that by the time I changed monitors so the other would charge, after, of course, making sure the most recent download was completed and the adhesive patch was still keeping adhered properly to my skin without folding under and blocking one of the imbedded sensors and the phone was now on my headboard and plugged in to its charger for the night (after lights were out because I wasn't to be more than 10 feet from the phone and the light switch was farther away than that, and hey! you try plugging that stupid cord in to your phone in the dark the right-way up the first or even the 17th time by the time all this crap is done!)...

Big inhale....

After all that, no matter how wiped out I'd been when I started for bed, I was now wide awake again and stewing. Among everything else, I was heartily tired of sleep deprivation. It gets worse. the toilet is even farther away than the light switch, so the process of disconnecting from the charger, hooking on my pj's waistband, wandering down the hall and back again, replugging to the charger, again all in the dark...

So, the system is in its return box, a note accompanying the phone in its "malfunctioning equipment" bubble wrap bag which the company thoughtfully supplied "just in case". After a nap and shower, I'll head out to the local UPS store and ship it off. Thursday I'll go see the cardiologist to go over results. My bet will be on "inconclusive". Nothing major happened during these three weeks, just a flutter or 90, and I don't need a machine to tell me that. Meanwhile, I've kept their office apprised of the technical issues, having to reschedule the appointment to discuss results.

They did drop the idea into that conversation that the office is considering going with a different company's system for their next set of patients. At least somebody's listening.

On the plus side, the rash from the 1st adhesive patches, now 4 weeks old, has finally gone away. The silicone adhesive worked well in that regard. And everybody who saw the phone case, as I pulled it out to restart the system, wanted to know how they could get their own just like it. Ummmm... get a funky cardiac rhythm?