So, um... remember that whole Cardiac Thing that happened to me last October?

It just happened again.

The good news is that it was NOWHERE near as dramatic as last time. I was home, around 550p my heart felt like it tripped over itself, and *voomph!* it was off and flying.

But even then, I knew it wasn't as bad as last time... but it was bad enough to make me call 9-1-1 and get the EMTs over here. They got me into the ambulance, and while I was on the gurney, before they put an IV into me, my heart stopped being wildman. The trip to the hospital was uneventful --except it was in an ambulance, and they were so unconcerned ("no pain, the heart's got a normal rhythm, breathing normal, and he's making jokes.") that they didn't even bother with the siren. Which is a shame, because the siren is one of the saving graces of being IN the ambulance.

So we get there, and I walked out the back of the ambulance. Down the hall. To the ER room. They hooked me up to the various gizmos ("This is the machine that goes *ping*. It's very expensive."), and...

...I'm fine. My pulse is a little fast (120bpm), but my blood pressure is within my normal range, if a tad on the high side. They dose me with a drug called lopressor, a betablocker, to slow my pulse down, and haikeeba! it comes down to 90 or so.

After a few hours of being on an uncomfortable medical gurney (my @$$ hurts!) the doc says "you're fine. You're going home now." Which thrills me to no end, but, um... aren't we forgetting something?

"We don't know why it happened. We do know it wasn't your potassium or magnesium levels... they're fine. Everything we tested came back okay. The heart is an electrical thing (note: I'm paraphrasing), and you had a power surge. Or a failure. Or something. It may never happen again. It may happen next week. Or next year. But probably not tonight."

Oh. Well. Okay, then. You DO so ease my worried mind, Doc.

And so, I'm home. With a big ol' dartboard mark on the inside of my left elbow, a cheap plastic ID band on my right wrist, and a worried furrow on my brow. Not to mention a few more gray hairs.

But, on the plus side, I'm still alive. I probably could have not called 9-1-1. But remember what I said back in October: "Here's your lesson for the day: IF YOUR HEART IS DOING SOMETHING ODD, CALL YOUR LOCAL EMERGENCY NUMBER IMMEDIATELY."

I think I'm going to sob uncontrollably for a few minutes now.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 04:05 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 460 words, total size 3 kb.