I heart you

Sometime in September, while I was rolling along on the exercise train, I began noticing my heart skipping and jumping and doing a happy dance. Nothing I hadn't experienced before because I'd been diagnosed years ago with premature ventricular contractions and premature atrial contractions. I wore a Holter monitor and had an ultrasound of my heart, and everything came back normal. My children were toddlers then, under the age of 5, and it was a relief to know all was well.

Because my dad died of a massive heart attack, my brother and I are very conscious of that organ. I have high blood pressure, and when my PVC's or PAC's come on strong enough for me to feel them, it is usually accompanied by a spike in my blood pressure, and my medications are tweaked. I had experienced that very thing over a year ago. But this time, my blood pressure was low. Although now the powers to be have changed the required BP standard so that anything lower than 120/80 is considered excellent.

Yeah, but that isn't normal for ME. I explained this to my regular doctor, whom I sought because the skipping heart was making me cray-cray. She didn't care. My bp at that reading was 112/65 and was considered EXCELLENT. She gave me an EKG and, as all my EKG's do, it read abnormal with regular sinus rhythm. The doctor then turned to my last EKG done in 2010, and in comparing the two, she found a difference.

Her: "You may have had a mild heart attack in the past. I'm not saying you did, but it is a possibility."

I did not freak out. I've been saying for years, at certain times, that my heart hurts, and perhaps I am having a heart attack. I sort of say it in jest, but I also say it in case I keel over clutching my heart. Did I mention how my father died?

Apparently, not everyone in my family believes me. Here is a time in 2009 when I announced that very thing.

I reminded my doctor about the LifeScan, where I had also had an EKG one year ago. She compared that one with this one, and it was the same. The "heart attack" happened between 2010 and 2018.

She suggested I see a cardiologist, and I jumped on that. Yes! Shouldn't I have had one of those already? Naturally, I could not get in to see one for two weeks, so I lived with my irregular heart and became even crazier, although I took great joy in reminding my family how they never believed me when I claimed a heart attack.

I took my LifeScan paperwork to the cardiologist. She did an EKG and explained to me that it is rare for an EKG to be healthy on a woman because we have breasts that block the very area where they need to place the leads. I have large breasts, so I have a double whammy. She was not concerned about the EKG difference, and that was the end of that.

When she examed me, my heart behaved and jumped. A PVC. She explained it was normal, and said in times of stress, women issues, etc. it happens more frequently. Great. Add another blow to being a woman.

In my mass of paperwork from the LifeScan, she found my stress test, all normal, and the work-up on the angiogram I had done with contrasting dye. Highly impressed, she told me that was the granddaddy of all tests, something she would've never ordered for me, and she had absolutely no worries about my heart because that test had come back clean and clear as a whistle.

I told her it was driving me nuts.

She put a Holter monitor on me for 48 hours and suggested I start drinking electrolytes.

I left the office, took the elevator downstairs to my gym, and began working out. My heart jumped and skipped the entire hour and the hour after that, and I just knew I was going to be able to say TOLD YOU to my new cardiologist.

Then I went to Pennsylvania, and my heart hasn't done it since then. My follow-up visit with the cardiologist showed precisely what the last monitor had shown back in the day. I have PVC's and PAC's, and they are all within the normal range.

Her: "I have no concerns about your heart. Yes, the PVC's can make you worry more. Yours are normal. You only had one couplet where they were back to back. All normal. I don't have blood work on you (which I had taken that very day for my primary doctor), but I don't see anything with your heart that shouts WARNING. Go into the world and live your life."

She tweaked my medications. Four days later, I had my yearly physical where my blood work came back EXCELLENT. Not only was my cholesterol lower than its been in years, but everything else was EXCELLENT. That's the word my primary kept using. She told me to hop back on the exercise train, relax, follow the cardiologist's advice, and maybe since getting away from home helped, leave town.

She was kidding about the last part, but, hey, maybe there is something to that.

I think I'll add it to my 2020 resolutions.