Friday, October 22, 2021

Medical Stuff

 I mentioned some Atrial Fibrillations to my doctor, and I am now fitted with a heart monitor. This is a small (2" high, 1" wide, 3/4" deep) sensor attached with high-strength, waterproof tape to the upper middle of my chest, and a semi-smart phone clipped to my belt. I get to wear this for 30 days. If the sensor company detects anything they think is abnormal, they will call me on my regular cell phone, attached to the other hip, and ask me what's up. If I detect anything I think they should know about, I can use the app on their phone to briefly describe it. All I need is an illuminated star on a hat to complete the Christmas tree similarity.

Could be worse. I had envisioned a complex bunch of wires and sensors, connected to a shoe-box sized device that would detect and report anything that happened to me and download a report on it to my medical file, located somewhere in North Korea.

Imagine this rig detecting something they interpret as a heart attack, and immediately responding with a jolt from the onboard defibrillator. Life saving, no? Imagine going out to an IDPA match wearing this thing, and having it interpret my first 2 shots on a stage as a heart attack. Imagine firing your first 2 shots on the first target, and having the defibrillator kick in as you line up on the second one, causing you to run the next 8 or 9 rounds off at 600 rpm. The good news I guess would be that when you empty your magazine, the machine would interpret this as successful treatment of the heart attack, and shut itself off. The bad news is that standard mag capacity for a pistol caliber carbine, such as I shoot, is 30 rounds. I suppose I would be grateful that no one makes a magazine for my gun bigger than 16 rounds.

Saturday, we will see if the sensor I'm wearing is affected by gunfire.

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