So last time I went over not my
first, and certainly not my last dealings with idiotic doctors. Don’t get me
wrong, I do (sort of) have some semblance of respect for doctors and all the
time they spend in medical school. I have no doubt that they have more
knowledge than me in things medical however, there is no one, and I repeat, NO
ONE that has more knowledge about me whether it be physically, mentally,
emotionally or spiritually than me (well, except God).
Fast forward to Summer of 2009. We
took our yearly fishing vacation. It was and still is our yearly fishing
marathon. When I say marathon, I mean marathon. We own a fishing boat and my
husband absolutely loves to fish. Our family goes south complete with all our
gear and boat trailing behind us; stress dripping away as the miles go by. We
look forward to this trip all year. Personally, I love to just hang out on the
boat with the family, and quite frankly all I catch is a tan. We’ve been going
on this trip for ten years now. BIGS (Before I Got Sick) my husband would wake
us up early (really a rather reasonable hour) with breakfast made to inhale so
we could get out on the bay and fish. We have and continue to have such fond
memories of these trips. We would go out in the somewhat early morning hours
and fish until the sun went down. Oh, did I mention that before the rest of the
family got up, my terrific hubby would have loaded the boat with bait, all
essential equipment, and packed the lunch complete with plenty of beer (for the
adults only). All we had to do was roll out of bed, scarf down a delicious
breakfast and make for the boat, which was docked right outside our door. We’d
all climb aboard, sleep still in our eyes, but more than willing to spend the
day out on the water, hopefully catching fish, and a lobster or two, or twenty
if we were lucky.
That particular year, I felt yucky.
Couldn’t really put my finger on it, but yucky none the less. I tried my
hardest to put my best foot, or fin forward. We ended up having a wonderful
vacation as usual, but I still didn’t feel quite “right”. This I kept to
myself.
Upon returning home, I felt the need
to see another doctor. I figured that five months was a sufficient amount of
time to calm down from my last doctor visit. I was experiencing an increase in
my heart rate while doing things that weren’t considered exhausting; such as
making the bed, letting the dogs out for their morning duties, etc. Still I
kept this to myself. I didn’t really have any other symptoms, just the racing
heart and sometimes I was out of breath.
During this time I was quite active,
for me, that is. A few months prior I had started a “diet” so to speak. I had
wanted to lose a bit of weight, but mainly, I just wanted to be healthier. I
also began an exercise routine. In the past my exercise routines had been
rather sparse; I’ve never been one to consistently exercise (before my children
were born I used to run five miles a day, which quickly ended when they came
into the world). In fact, I have, on occasion claimed that I am allergic to
exercise. However, I wasn’t getting any younger and the pounds were slowly
adding up, so I figured, why not. I began to ride my bike nine or so miles a
day, about five to six times a week. I actually felt pretty good and looked
forward to my ride daily. While on this “diet” I was taught about target heart
rate, the rate you want your heart to be at so as to burn calories efficiently.
My target heart rate was 120. Thus, my concern when my heart rate was 120+
while making the bed.
I went to a local nurse practitioner.
I ended up seeing a nurse whom I had known from previous homeschooling years. She
did an EKG on me and examined me. The EKG came back normal, however she said it
wasn’t normal for my heart to race like I had explained. She referred me to a
Cardiologist that came to the offices once a week. This
was in the fall of 2009.
Let me backtrack just a bit. Earlier
in the summer, I had gone to my regular GYN appointment. I absolutely abhor
going, not because of the exam (although you’d think that that would be
enough), but because the office was so far away and the wait time was always
forever and the office staff…well, let’s just say they need some training. I
really like my doctor though, but I would always be angry even before I set out
to see him. When I got to the doctor, he told me that my blood pressure was a
bit high. He said that it was no big deal as I didn’t have a history of it, but
to just watch it; if I was near a drugstore that had a bp machine, pop in and
just give it a test. I did this a few times and my bp was elevated each time. I
suppose looking back I could say that I was stressed at the time, but it was
all good stress. All except that my children were on vacation for three weeks
with the grandparents and I was missing them and constantly worried about them.
Anywhoo, back to the nurse. I made
the appointment to see the cardiologist.
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