(Phaysis)

To the concerned, I am bruised but not broken. My heart is ok, but you should see the veins on my left arm. Yesterday’s trip to the ER was humbling but yielded a potentially positive outcome.

It started with a sip of soda; some went down my windpipe and caused me to cough forcefully. This is a bad thing — with me, coughs almost always end in hiccups (after smoking for 9 years, I can’t cough anymore – I have to hack). So, the hiccups inevitably began and I could not silence them soon enough. The unfortunate chain of events ended in tachycardia: the sudden, sustained doubling of my heartrate.

I’ve had this before, too many times. Went to the ER for it on one extremely long case. Usually lasts five to thirty seconds until my heart finally settles down. But yesterday morning, after I tried all my doctor-recommended tricks to end it, I knew it was going to last, so I called to my roomate to take me to the ER.

All the signs, cars, stop lights, people, activity – you notice the absurdity of it all when you’re sitting in a passenger seat and your vehicle is going in slow motion, your pulse is 180bpm and your heart feels like it wants to die. You feel completely unimportant; the world goes on regardless of your emergent health.

Tachycardia is not fatal; there’s a 1% to 3% chance of death from cardiac arrest. It feels like it’s eminent, though; the heart is on a freewheeling feedback where it still pumps blood but does so incredibly inefficiently. When your pulse returns to normal, you almost can’t feel it anymore, but you’re still alive. It’s otherworldly to not feel your own pulse, but you’re glad it’s settled down. You can relax.

I went to the ER hoping that they could get the ECG leads on me before it settled; sadly, my heart once again returned to normal before I could see a triage nurse. For a proper diagnosis, they need to see it happening. I considered trying to induce it, a potentially dangerous proposition, but it’d be the best place to try that kind of thing.

The doctor on staff mentioned that it might be a condition known as WPW, or Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome; the cardiologist on call suggested it, and the staff doctor seemed to agree. Basically, the heart has a nerve bundle between the upper and lower chambers which is responsible for transmitting the heartbeat impulse between halves while in the process delaying the beat of the lower chambers.

People with WPW also have a rogue nerve elsewhere between the halves that causes the impulse to be sent too soon and on rare occasion will cause a circular impulse loop, resulting in tachycardia. WPW is treatable with medication and in most cases (I’m assuming) curable with a procedure called radio-frequency ablation where heart surgeons run a catheter to the site of the rogue nerve and burn it with radio energy.

This errant nerve is formed at gestation but its effects are generally not seen until the person is between 11 and 40 years of age. I’ve had this problem for at least since 25. I had always associated it with smoking or too much caffiene; although that exacerbates the situation, it is not the cause.

The ER doctor recommended I see the cardiologist for a follow-up. Gave me his pager and office numbers. Since I have new insurance, I need to check with my provider to ensure I can see this specialist without referral from my primary physician. Politics and money first, health second. As much as I hate using the phone, I will start making some calls tomorrow morning. Even if the ER trip was a wash, this important lead makes it worth the effort.

Two weeks ago I looked forward in time to this three-day holiday weekend and saw a bit of fun, frivolity, high times. Now that there’s only about 4 hours left of it, there’s still hope for the weekend delivering on those visions.

My fingers are crossed.

Today, scratch that, this weekend has found me in a weird mood. Restless, trying to escape the pervasive heat, trying to deal with parts of my body that let me down. Last monday I was getting dressed for work and inhaled some saliva after brushing my teeth. So I coughed. And each cough was punctuated by a hiccup. The coughing stopped, but the hiccups stayed. A few minutes later, I was bent over to pick up some socks in the closet when a hiccup hit me, sending my heart into another of its famous tachycardiac fits. Pulse shot to 180bpm (it’s normally 80~90bpm at rest). And it was rough. Lasted longer than usual (30 to 90 seconds). Much longer.

I had my roomate drive me to the E.R. where no sooner do I finish the paperwork and sit down to wait on my name to be called the tachycardia stops, my blood pressure drops, and I settle down. Total time: 15 minutes – the longest spell to date, and that’s scary. I was sore, and pissed that I couldn’t get an EKG before it was finished (that’s the only way to diagnose the cause of tachycardia). So I wasted time at the ER. And money.

The past two weeks have been kinda shitty moneywise. It was good that I did some math on my expenses because after all five of my autodebited bills come out of my checking account I’ll have around $150 left, and that’s to be spent on food, etc. I’ve been living skinny, and it’s scaring me. Always one paycheck from disaster. I want a job that pays better than my current job. I’m considering taking a part-time job in addition to my regular gig; put my wasted nights to good use.

Apparently, times aren’t tough just for me: I found out two weeks ago that my mother is sick again. The woman was too proud to call me to let me know (“I didn’t want to bother you…”). She’s unable to work and is down with full-body pains. Can only walk around with canes and walkers. So she has no money coming in, and the V.A. doctor will only give her pain killers instead of trying to give her quicker access to getting tested for Multiple Schlerosis. She has to be diagnosed with MS to be given the essential drugs she needs to minimize the MS attacks and get on with life. And things are moving glacially while she’s living the bad life on the skids.

It bothers me that I can’t afford to help my mother more; I shipped her two books, a card, and $40. She has food stamps, so she’s not hungry, but nobody visits her, hardly anyone calls her, apparently my sister will have nothing to do with her – and she lives in the same town (I need to get to the bottom of that) – and my mom’s just too young to be going through this kind of thing.

So I guess I have a few issues to deal with. Normally I am able to have good weekends and even better 3-day holiday weekends, but it’s not possible this year. Not at all. Don’t expect me to celebrate much.