"Infection in heart"

I had a pacemaker fitted a couple of years ago about 1 year later I started getting pain under my breast and in my back. I complained about it to my doctor. He gave me pain killers and after that I just kept complaining until he referred me back to my cardiologist.

He said it might be nerve damage because of the operation. He gave me pain killers as well. Months later I went in to a/e, I was taken to the medical emergency ward where I was seen by a consultant about pain under my breast and in my back and a clicking noise at the same place. He arranged for me to have a doppler scan of my heart which I had. Nothing was found.

A month later I was lying in bed and I felt cold. I was shaking violently. My daughter was warming me with the hair dryer to try and keep me warm. I said I was probably getting a cold or flu so I left it. This happened 7 times but I knew I was getting bad. I thought something was going wrong somewhere so my daughter said she was phoning a ambulance now.

She did and I went straight to the medical ward. I was seen by a doctor and I told him my symptoms. He did some tests and said I had rigor.

After that I had heart tests done and blood tests. They found an infection in my heart the size of a golf ball. I was put on antibiotic drips and tablets.

I was transferred to a different hospital where they gave me scans and cameras close to my heart. They said I might have to have open heart surgery and that had the infection dropped on to one of my arteries I could have died. I had the operation done and they just pulled the pacemaker out with the wires. Thank god I'm still here today.