2/17/07
If you saw me right now you might think I was some sort of bionic woman, with rainbow colored wires sticking out all over the place and some strange electrical device hooked to my waistband. Let me reassure you: Bionic, no. Insane, yes.
I have been having the sensation of palpitations for several days now. I say sensation, because when my doctor hooked me up to an EKG (more wires) she didn't see anything. As opposed to my other doctor who hooked me up to an EKG two days ago and said they were seeing some unusual blips, but not to worry because it probably wasn't medically relevant, we'll follow up next week with some further tests. It was only later, when I was laying in bed, alone in the dark, that I began to think about that. And do you know what I thought? I thought "Excuse me, but unusual blips on an EKG seem to me to be extremely medically relevant."
I have been thinking about those blips for several days now, imagining all sorts of things. It doesn't help that when you type in "heart palpitations" on Google, one of the first pages that comes up has a story about a middle aged woman named, I think, Ellen who "glanced at her watch and tapped her foot impatiently while she waited for her husband to arrive, before she suddenly and instantly dropped dead."
Whoa. Hold on a minute. Dropping dead is definitely medically relevant. Incidentally, stories such as these cause anxiety. Anxiety causes heart palpitations. See the lovely circle? This is why the internet STINKS. Thanks, Al.
It was only a while later that I thought to myself that if Ellen so quickly and dramatically dropped dead, how do they know she was tapping her foot and feeling impatient? Who told? (Oh, and no, I'm not a quick thinker, lately, am I?)
Anyway, my heart rate is high, my blood pressure is elevated, and I am having "sensations" of palpitations. Then picture this: me, in the middle of the night , lying alone in the dark because Greg was away, heart racing and my imagination running away with it. If I dropped dead just like Ellen, how long would it take for someone to find me, and what would my girls do? I imagined Juliette helping Cosette to all the junk food in the cabinet. Then I imagined Cosette tumbling break neck down the stairs and playing with knives and sticking her fingers in electrical outlets while Juliette, jumping on the sofa, fell off and lay crumpled and unconscious on the floor.
Incidentally, thoughts such as these cause anxiety. Anxiety causes heart palpitations. See the lovely circle? So this morning I called the doctor and said "I can't wait until next week. It is stressing me out!" In I went, and now here I sit with a Holter monitor taped to me. Tomorrow I go for an electrocardiogram. Next week, chest x-ray and some blood work. All because of that crazy "sensation." Which are "very common". "nothing to worry about, I'm sure." But let's follow up with every imaginable test possible.
I am a pretty convincing crazy person. A crazy person who got the day off from work on the doctors orders. A crazy person who then had to wait in the cardiologists waiting room, where the average age was, like, 75 (that's including me and my mom who was, out of worry for me, also feeling quite anxious, the two outliers in the room), feeling a little conspicuous in my relative youth, imagining all these other older people thinking to themselves "Poor girl, it must be serious to be here at such a young age." A crazy person with crazy wires sticking out everywhere trying not to think crazy thoughts.
2/18/07
It is now the next day. The Holter monitor has been removed, leaving behind angry red exes where the tape was. Oh, yeah. I'm sensitive to medical tape. I remember that now. Itchy itchy! I went for my ECG today; that was fun. Really. First, the nurse at the PCP's office who set up the appointment for me gave me the wrong street number- hello, after driving back and forth a few times I was pretty sure # 335 didn't exist. And then when I tried to call I discovered that the phone number she gave me was also wrong. I tried all possible iterations of the phone number, and none of them worked. Then I tried to call the nurse, but she was out at lunch. What to do? I picked a medical looking building, parked, and walked in. Nope, not it. The next building was, fortunately, the right one.
An hour and a half later I walked out a changed woman.
You see, I have had mitral valve prolapse since I was born (two months premature) and it has always been something that I've been aware of. I was tested when I was seven, again at 21, and it was still there. Really, it didn't affect me, other then the fact that I had to take antibiotics when I went to the dentist, and when I went into labor. But in the back of my head it was always there, along with the possibility that someday it could get worse and cause some serious problems.
But today? Today I found out that I do not have mitral valve prolapse.
I'm not even sure how to process that. MVP has been a part of who I am, and this afternoon, the doctor took that part of me away. It was a bad part, and I'm glad to see it go, but still. Wow.
Part of the reason I have been so anxious about these blips on the EKG and the palpitations was that I thought it might be related to the MVP. But I don't have MVP. In fact, my heart is very healthy! Yippee!
Healthy except, you know, for the palpitations. And heart rate of 104.
So later, I began to wonder, if it isn't my heart... what is wrong with me? Is it really just stress?
No, that can't be it.
Oh My God...
I must have a brain tumor.
3/11/07
I will spare you the rest of the details about my next doctors visit, the prescriptions, the specialists, and even more prescriptions, and I will just tell you this: no one figured it out, but the heart palpitations and shortness of breath have gotten better, and the dizziness got much better after I stopped using the nasal spray.
I believe that it really was just stress.
That said... and I don't mean to go off on a rant but...
Here is the real problem as I see it. It is the fact that even as more and more information becomes available over the internet, our doctors become less and less interested or able to spend any real time with us. Then we start to diagnose ourselves, and I know I am not the only person who jumps to quick and incorrect conclusions based on my limited medical knowledge and the misinformation that can be found on the internet. If my doctor would have taken 15 minutes to talk to me he would have learned that Greg was away for a week-long business trip to California, and had spent the previous week in Germany. He would have learned that I had recently been involved in a fender bender with my two girls in the car. He would have learned that work had started to become very stressful. He would have taken the time to explain the results of his initial testing a little more so that I wouldn't have the opportunity to imagine worst case scenarios. He could have listened, and he could have told me that I am not wonder woman and that what I really needed was to relax and be rational.
It is true that I have a jaded view towards MD's. I got my PhD at a medical school, and many of us looked down on med students, just as much as med students look down on grad students. So when I go in to see my MD I don't expect any miracles. They are only human, after all.
But I'm tired of that. I want my doctor to listen to me. If I tell the nurse something, and she writes it in the chart, I expect the doctor to read it. But you know what? They don't. In order to get better medical care, should I expect even less? Should I go in and each and every time start from the beginning? "I was born on a cold and snowy night in December, two months premature. The doctor wasn't sure I would survive, but I did." If I have to, I will. But they had better book two time slots for me, or the people in the waiting room are really going to be irritated!
So here is my mini revolution. Next week when I go for a follow up, I'm going to sit next to that Ear Nose Throat guy and explain to him that I did not take the muscle relaxant he prescribed. I'm going to pull out a sheet of paper on which I have written: Column 1, Symptoms: Heart palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness. Next to that list I will have a list of the common side affects of the muscle relaxant he prescribed, and I'll write "Column 2, side affects: see column 1." Because the side effects were the same as the symptoms I was going in to get treated for! Not to mention that the drug "may cause dependency". And I am going to say that he has to convince me as to why he gave me this particular drug; and he has to convince me that this class of drugs will in fact help my symptoms. Because if he can't really treat the problem, then I'd rather know that then come home with a "placebo".
Quality, not quantity. That should be the new motto of the American Medical Association.
