Welcome To My Palpitations (Part Three)

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A memoir

© DJ Ryan June 2008

Its 10 am on a Tuesday morning in the hospital and my porter and I are on a wheel chair adventure. We're on our way to treadmill city and on my arrival I’m ushered into a sunlight room with several large metallic cabinets with gleaming monitors and dials.

"Hello Mark,” beams the first of my two nurse technicians in attendance.
“Yes, welcome to suite two,” echo’s the other. "We’ve brought you here for a comprehensive fatigue test, we’ll be working you hard and monitoring as we go.

We discuss the procedure and I explain that apart from my heart incident, I have two inguinal hernias, which might cause some bother. We joke a little about them being my dominatrix sisters, and how I won't be calling either of them mistress! Then without a please, thank you or help from foamy white soap, the shaving of my body begins. It’s a razor scratch here and sandpaper rubs there, till my chest and other points on my torso and legs are as smooth as a shiny pink balloon. Next they affix the sensors, and then lead me to their treadmill.

Every few minutes, one of my techs calls out blood pressure and other vitals to her partner, who's monitoring a console, which records then prints all the information out. As she works she’s calling out to me.

"You doing okay Mark? Not feeling any pain? How’s your comfort level, all right to continue? You’re doing really well. You've just passed five minutes …Okay, adding more speed now. That’s it bigger steps, don’t run just take longer strides.”

Minute by minute I can feel the pressure build and I know its up to me to tell them how I feel, but I'm strangely reassured by their encouraging words. Allusions of Superman flash into my mind.

"Hold on Lois, I’m a coming to save you …"

"Just a few more minutes Mark, everything is looking good. We're counting down to the finish, just over two minutes to go."

"I think I’d like to stop pretty soon," I gasp. "Just about near my..."

"Just one more minute Mark. Hang in there, you’re doing great."

Then it's over. The treadmill stops, I feel knackered, but in a good way, it’s like I've just had sex, but without the messy bits.

"You've done really well Mark,” said the nurse from behind the monitor, you completed one hundred percent of the tests and all your vitals are normal.”
“Yes, that was excellent," her partner, agrees.

God I love this stuff, an audience of attractive young ladies and it’s all been about me, me, me! When I’ve put my dressing gown back on I thank my nurses and tell them I'll be back a little later for the medal ceremony. I leave Suite Two, feeling good and starting to wonder what the hell I'm doing in hospital.

But while I wait for an orderly to arrive with a wheelchair, I end up sharing the waiting room with another patient. He looks weary and frail and I'm guessing he’s in his sixties. “Are you here for a heart attack as well?” he asks.
“No.” I shrug, “so far, only for the symptoms of one. What about you?"

"Yes," he nods, "just last month, crazy thing was, I ignored the pain for a whole day. Kept convincing myself it would go away … I mean Jez I‘m only 51.”

“Yeah,” I said slowly, and nodding. “We do these things don't we?"

As he goes on to describe all the signs he'd ignored, in my mind, I've already started my own dialogue ... Yeah, damn right, I had most of the same symptoms. That was me less than twenty-four hours ago.

My ride arrives. I climb in and wish the other guy all the best. A part of me is not feeling quite as cocky as I had been and now I’m almost looking forward to returning to a freshly made bed, in the corner of that dowdy room.

When we get there a nurse is waiting to take more blood. She’s good company for the next few minutes. In fact, when I think about it, I've been very lucky with nearly all the nurses. I've judged each of them in that everyman way, with physical attraction up front. Most of them were way too young, but lovely to watch just the same. And anyway, who did I think I was kidding? In this place, as each minute passed, I was rapidly turning into just another failing middle-ager.

Over the next couple of hours, I nearly talk myself into being the un-well guy again. Even though I can’t feel any of the symptoms I'd presented with yesterday morning, other things now seem to be going wrong. Reading the results of my latest blood test, a doctor informs me that the INR reading is 9.3, when it should be somewhere between 2.7 and 3.4. None of this means much to me but I do pick up that these readings are highly irregular.
"I'm sure that this is just a glitch Mr. London, but I'm afraid we'll need to do another test. Unfortunately, because of your recent history, if the next reading is high we may need to keep you here for another couple of nights."

I glance around the room and shiver, two more nights in this place? Skeleton man's bed is empty, he’s still away at surgery, and the Asian guy is sitting on the edge of his bed staring into space. The curtains are drawn around Joe the miner, he’s in consultation with his specialist and several members of his family. I can hear questions being tossed back and forth: options on a possible diagnosis if his growth turns out to be malignant. What should be private conversation is being played out in this room for all to hear. I guess this is one of the things that make public hospital so public.

After two further conversations with the specialist and me pushing hard for a release, he eventually agrees to discharge me.

"But you'll need liaise very closely with your GP,“ my specialist warns.

Okay, so I'm two days older, still on medication and the state of my health remains a contradiction. But yes, I do get to go home today.

A few days later, I just make the seven am bus. The ride is uneventful, who’s to know or care that my role is Mr. Unwell guy again? Once more it's destination for the good of your health and yet another outpatient clinic at North Shore.

Today, it’s a thoracic spinal x-ray where the technician is kindly but looks bored. They don’t really care what your problem is, their job, their purpose is to capture the very best image of your pre-specified body part.

"Hold your breath and keep still please. That’s good. Okay, you can get dressed now, your GP will have these in a couple of days."

Just another day in limbo land, where adopting unwell-ness as, that by which you are defined, comes naturally.

It's easy to do when your world is ruled by travelling to and from hospital appointments and numerous visits to the GP. Then there are the dozens of walks up the road to the clinic where blood samples are taken so that they can read my INR level, which determines how much rat poison I may have to swallow.

On a busy morning, up to 25 people can be in that waiting room. The old and frail, the might be negative or positive, all being assaulted by loud, banal, commercial radio, till their name is called. At each visit they key in my name, a word processor regurgitates my details onto an adhesive label, which is stuck to a card and handed back to me after the syringe that I never look at stings my arm, while the nurse tries to distract me by asking,
“Will you be having a busy day today, Mark?”

Working with my GP has been an ongoing learning curve too. Sometimes I sense an element of professional jealousy between the specialists at the hospital and my GP. This leads to contradictory advice meaning I must choose what seems closest to the truth for me.

During these past few months, my state of mind has remained, for the most part, disengaged and calm. I'm the professional sick person, with my life put on hold. Part of me suspects that all of this has been an aberration. Then again, what do I know? I'm just the writer, searching for that right-someone in publishing. I’m the investigator of, "Who started my palpitations?"

Perhaps the answer is here at this next appointment, for the echocardiogram … where, the only light emanating from in the room is from a bank of soft humming machines that have rows of buttons and plasma screens. I feel like I've just stepped onto the set of a science fiction movie. There’s even a slightly odd-looking man in a white coat that could be the mad professor. His softly spoken voice asks me to remove my shirt and lie down on the white-sheeted bench.

It feels uncomfortable when he pushes the gun into my chest, then over the gentle swishing noise of my heart, we make small talk with no direction or end. When I try to offer what I think might be relevant information, telling him how, when I lie on my left side to sleep. I feel unwell and have this sense of a lack of wellbeing. He merely offers a half-hearted shrug. And as for, does he know what causes the palpitations? He suggests nothing, apart from a gesture resembling metaphorical hands in the air. To his credit, he does answer my question about the occasional electric shock sensation I get in my heart, which I thought might be related to my problem. After my exam he drew a diagram of my heart and explained how this was a very common occurrence, caused by confused signals being conveyed to the heart, something to do with blood going between the cavities or something. But apparently, there‘s nothing to worry about, it’s just my body making a natural adjustment.

****

As far as tracking the various stages of this ailment, my first inkling was perhaps a week before the event. But back then, I stayed in the classic, "It’s all in your head", mode, right up until that first ECG.

Only when the hospital confirmed my symptoms to the GP, did I finally own up to it. Then it was, "Hey, look at me everybody, I have a genuinely diagnosed condition. Friends and family you need to take notice, this could be serious there have been ambulance rides and hospital admissions?

Yes, perhaps I used my affliction to gain attention and I only relented when I sensed peoples waning interest. But after numerous tests and consultations with specialists, technicians and my GP, medical science has declared my case to be a draw. In fact, the most recent words from the hospital specialist were:

“We can’t give you a definitive answer. Just stay on the medication and keep consulting your GP.”

Twelve months on, the medication has made a little bit of a difference. But now and then, just to remind me, I still feel the occasional rumble or a quick quick slow around my heart. Then it passes and everything feels normal, or as normal as one can feel, given the circumstances. I take it for granted that from this point on I will always be a little preoccupied with my health. And hey, don’t get me started on the state of my back.

****

Read Part One here.

Read Part Two here.

Submitted 23rd Nov 2009 by GrownUps Member: DJ Ryan

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