It shows a pulse of 34 beats per minute (normal is 60-100), a rate that certainly explained her symptoms. As I pulled the story out of her, she mentioned she has a pacemaker (you can see evidence of this on the EKG). Delving deeper I discovered she was one of the first patients seen at Loma de Luz when it was mostly an outpatient clinic. Apparently her chief complaint when she came in 2000 was fainting. She was in her late 20s with 6 young children. While working in her fields on the side of the mountain she would suddenly wake up at the bottom of the hill, having passed out. Her heart was in third degree or complete heart block, probably from Chagas' disease. The director/surgeon of the hospital pulled some strings and was able to get a pacemaker for her which he put in at a hospital in the city a couple of hours away, since Loma de Luz at that time did not have a functional operating room for this kind of procedure.
Pacemaker batteries are supposed to be replaced every 10 years and now I know why. This woman has had hers for 15 years and it is only beating half the amount it should. A few emails and phone calls later and we were able to get her in to a program in the capital city where they will put a new pacemaker in for free.
As I am finishing my journey back to the U.S. this woman (part of whose name means "Hope") will be starting her journey to the capital to get a new pacemaker. I'm praying that she gets the right buses, navigates her way to the hospital, and finds the surgeon who will do the procedure, and that the old pacemaker she has will keep working until then.
