Re: "his insurance will only cover the first of three required weeks" of six months
My heart has a worn out natural pacemaker, worn out AV node and full block of the right bundle. Result is that the heart cannot pace itself at a rate greater than 80bpm, once it tries to go above that, it just gives up due to overload and drops to a ventricle only "escape rhythm" of 40bpm. A simple 2 lead pacemaker has me back up and running with beats up to 120ppm (capped at that because of my advanced years).
I'd be quite interested to know what the alternate heart fix is rather than having a pacemaker fitted.