Skipping a Beat

Early morning a month or so ago lying in bed, I felt something strange. A weird calm, a pause of sorts followed by a rush through my brain and body. A few minutes later, it happened again, and I put my finger to my neck to feel my pulse. I felt boom-boom-boom....pause....boom-boom. I told Craig about it; he just shrugged.

Next day, same thing. After that, it didn't happen every day, but it continues to happen, sometimes waking me up at night. I've been more tired than usual despite getting between 8-10 hours of sleep every night. I find myself wondering if something might really be going on. I do stress my heart a lot with my workouts. Finally after a month of this, I called a cardiologist.

Tuesday afternoon arrived. Weight check, blood pressure check, hook me up to the EKG, and one minute later, the nurse is done, announces the doctor will see me soon, and off she goes. The doctor comes in, older gentleman, finished his first residency in Lebanon before I was even born, so you can envision the white hair. But he's a proper gentleman, and looks discerning, like he's seen it all. I like that.

Basic history is taken. A few deep breaths. He seems surprised to hear that I run so much and haven't passed out. Maybe I'm being hypersensitive to his response and facial expression. He takes a lot of notes, and stops to think before telling me that since my EKG was abnormal (his first mention of it!) and since I am a runner, he recommends four things. A complete blood work-up, an echo cardiogram to get a good look at my heart, a stress test on the ol' treadmill (my biggest foe!), and 24-hours wired up to a heart monitor.

I had been hoping it was a figment of my imagination. As Craig said, "We confirmed it's real today." He was shocked there was actually something wrong, and proceeded to talk about pacemaker technology, surgery, etc. I am not so shocked, but don't want to talk about pacemakers or surgery. It just makes me think I'm going to die. And then I start to get pissed off because I'm the one doing all the right things - clean eating, exercising 5x per week, sleeping 8-10hrs per night, no smoking, only social drinking.

So, I take a deep breath and begin to Google everything I can to learn about the tests.

My concerns:
1) I have breast implants. There's a lot of mention about how obtaining a clear study of the heart with breast implants can be difficult.
2) Well, see number 1. Will they impact everything? Hmmm, something I certainly didn't think about when I was getting them done. Wouldn't have stopped me, but it's very interesting to think about.

I got blood drawn yesterday, today I go in to have the 2 tests done, and I'll be wired up by evening. So this next week will be interesting. Still fooling myself into thinking it is just a figment of my imagination. Maybe the kids are just running me too ragged, maybe..... No seriously, spend a day or two with my kids when they are at their most crazy -- the shock of it might make your heart skip a beat or two as well.