Hearts are Funny Things

I went to the hospital on Friday for a quick errand to the lab. A ten, fifteen minute job at most. I had let my boss know I'd be out a few extra minutes that morning, he nodded and said it was fine, and so I headed there first thing that morning.

Now here's the fun part. For the past few weeks I've been having this feeling of hollow thumping in my chest. I feel it for about five seconds or so, maybe less, then it's gone. It's annoying. And sometimes worrisome. No pains, no dizziness, no bouts of extra sweating, just...palpitations.

My next appointment with my primary care physician is in December. Since I've been having these little bouts more frequently I decided that while I was stopping at the lab I would stop at the receptionists station and make an earlier appointment.

"She has a slot free on Monday at 3:00...what is it for?"

I explained. She had a weird look on her face. She then looked up some more information on the computer and said, "Rather than let it go over the weekend...we have a Dr. ### and his resident free in half an hour. Would that be okay?"

Apparently they don't like letting chest problems go. The issue was annoying to me, but never enough for me to tell my wife, "C'mon...I need to go to the ER." I hate the doctors office, but not because of the questions or the poking or the prodding or the blood drawing or even the feeling that I'm being called to the principal's office for eating too much. I hate it because of insurance companies. And paperwork. And screwups. And uncertainty in billing.

If I could cut myself off of all the obligations I have to my creditors and billing issues, I'd go off grid for all but my Internet connection.

But I agreed to see the doctor and resident. My 20 minutes visit ended two hours after I walked into the hospital. I had a long consult with the resident (he spent a good deal of time correcting my medical records for medications; that morning I sat down as I took my daily pills and recorded every name and dosage and printed them out). He went through checklists. He checked blood pressure. He found no reason for my palpitations in the medications.

The doctor that oversaw the resident then came in. Friendly as friendly could be, and he smelled like a pleasant fragrance in soap. I notice those things when you have someone leaning in close to check, again, the chest and back for breathing and heartbeat and pulse. He concurred with the resident for a plan of action. He told me that from my history...which was narrowed down a bit thanks to the surgery, since I only drink water now and follow a bland diet of personal choice (and is the reason I have a bariatric tag on this entry)...the most reasonable explanation was that I was suffering from STRESS.

Yes, my job may be shortening my life and is killing me.

I've been told this as an aside from my therapist and my primary care physician at different points when my blood sugar started going wild at certain points when certain things were going on at work.

I was scheduled to go to the blood lab early next week, and as soon as I went to reception he scheduled me with Cardiology. I had an EKG done (took five minutes. Literally.) and then the tech fitted me with a 24 hour wearable monitor.

The great irony? Because of events outside my control, the day was one of the least stressful I've had in weeks. The heart monitor will have had no idea what my average day was like. And otherwise these palpitations occur almost every day; I don't find it strange to have at least 2 episodes over the course of the day. A little more irony sprinkled on came from the fact that I couldn't exercise Thursday due to scheduling issues, planned to do it Friday, and couldn't because if I became too sweaty the leads wouldn't stick. So I'm on the stationary bike while typing this entry to make up for time.

I'll find out more after they get to analyze the EKG and the results of the recorder and the blood analysis.

I'm kind of torn in that I'm afraid they'll think I'm making this stuff up if I don't show anything on the results, but if they do find something I think that heart issues are usually not something to take lightly. I want validation that I'm not imagining this. But the reality of not imagining it could be extremely frightening...I suppose this is one case where I'd rather have nothing to worry about even if I look like an idiot.

I'm not a hypochondriac. I felt a couple hard thumps during the monitoring but not like my usual mini-episodes. So will it have found anything out of the ordinary? No idea.

Perhaps if Captain Irony wants the last laugh I'll finally get close to an ideal weight...near the time I finish my final draft of the novel story...and then have a heart attack as one final F-U. It's like paying off all your debts and running out of the post office with a giant grin on your face just when a bus hits you.

While I haven't thought these weird palpitation feelings lasting only a few seconds at a time have been enough to justify the anxiety of paperwork and billing and waiting at an ER I also think I worked too hard to try turning my health issues around to not have tried seeing my PCP earlier and have her check me out for potential cardiological issues. I didn't know my 15 minutes to the lab would turn into two hours of diagnosis and taping gel-covered leads to my massive hanging clumps of flesh, but it certainly did make the day more interesting.

At any rate I'm still alive and the monitor is now in an envelope to take back to Cardiology for analysis. I hope to know more about the results later in the week.