EFML: When my heart skipped a beat
Today, I choose to narrate one of the scariest incidents of my life, which after a year has gone by, seems less scary and more humorous. :)
On a day which started as normally as any other, I found myself alone at home. My day began at 5a.m, and I headed to work after having breakfast. Work was as hectic as always, and around lunch time, I felt the weird sensation of a skipped heartbeat. The most likely first question in your mind, as so many others asked me during that time is this: how does a skipped beat feel? This was what it felt like to me: I felt my heart suddenly thudding into life, and realized that it had stopped for a teeny tiny second, for the space of a beat. The first time this happened, I attributed it to a one-off anomaly and shrugged it off. I was a healthy young person who'd just turned 25, and had no cardiac history.
Then, in less than half an hour, I felt the same thing happen again. This time, I took it a little more seriously. I tried to remember if I'd felt breathless, or if I'd had any left arm pain-- any signs of imminent cardiac trouble. Everything was normal. I even tried to recall what I'd eaten the previous day, and if there was anything suspicious. Again, nothing. Because I did not have any symptoms other than this, I decided to wait and watch. Over a period of two hours, I felt the same thing happen a few more times. Being fully engrossed in work, I ignored it and continued to go about my day. I contemplated going to my parents' house just to be cautious, and thought it sounded like a good idea. However, my workday stretched, and I ended up missing the bus that would take me there.
I stayed back, and headed home after finishing work. That's when the anxiety and jitters hit me fully. I wondered what was causing this ectopic heartbeat, if I'd suddenly developed arrhythmia, or if this was a warning sign of something else. A google search yielded many hypotheses, none too comforting. I called up my mother and asked for advice, and after listening to me, she told me to try and calm down and sleep over it. If the symptoms persisted, I could get an ECG the next day.
While she said all this to make me feel better, I could clearly hear the worry in her voice when she volunteered to come over with my Dad. By then it was pouring cats and dogs, and they could not find a cab, so that didn't happen.
It had started raining at my place as well, and I was starting to freak out. I prayed to the Gods and swore to give up junk food and lead a more healthy life. I felt the foreboding feeling that something was about to happen to me, and the anxiety got worse. I wanted to get an ECG, so that I could quell my fears with the certainty of knowing. But this brought up another question: I had to go alone to the hospital and ask for an ECG. Other dire fears confronted me: What if something was truly wrong and I had to be admitted? If there were decisions to be taken? I would have to do all this myself, till I could get someone to come. Should I ask a friend? Would it not be an imposition?
I spoke to my husband, who was in a different city, waiting for his flight which would get him home around midnight. He was worried that there was nothing he could do, but managed to calm me a little.
I decided to get an ECG, and called a friend, who convinced me not to go alone, and ask another friend, who agreed to come with me immediately(@Jarvis, I could not be more grateful to you for this! :)). I booked a cab to her office, and stepped out in the rain, feeling worried and upset. I was talking to my husband throughout the ride, and the cabbie missed a turn and ended up leaving me half a kilometre from my destination. I walked to her office in the rain, and we tried to find a cab to the hospital. We could get none, owing to the rain and the traffic, and finally walked to the hospital which was nearby. I took every step in trepidation, wondering if I should be walking at all given my symptoms.
Finally, we were at the hospital, and headed to the ER, where I asked for an ECG. I was sent to a room, and my friend was told to wait outside. I clutched my phone fearfully, waiting for someone to take my ECG. Within five minutes, I was hooked up to the machine. By now, I was feeling light-headed, and was imagining all sorts of horrible scenarios, and trying to reassure myself that the ECG would soon be over and then I'd know. The two nurses at my side fiddled around with the wires and the machine for ten minutes, whispering in a language I did not understand. I was almost convinced that they were trying to decipher my weirdly abnormal ECG and discussing if they should call the doctor, till I looked up and saw the monitor showing a flatline. It occurred to me that they did not know how to hook up the ECG, and they were probably whispering, fearful of their supervisor admonishing them for their ignorance. I sighed in comic despair: They were perhaps new to this, but why me, Dear God!
Finally, they got a third technician in, and he was able to get it working. We sighed in collective relief, for different reasons. I waited anxiously for a doctor to come in and interpret the results.
He came, and took a look, while I tried to read his face. He looked down at me, and asked me: Why do you think there is something wrong? I told him my symptoms, and he gave me a look of disbelief. I have never heard of this skipped beat before, and your ECG is perfectly normal. You're probably imagining this went unsaid, but I heard it nevertheless in his patronizing tone and look.
He asked me a few perfunctory questions, before dismissing me. You are alright. You may go.
To him, I was likely yet another paranoid person wasting ER resources. But to me, this was a very scary experience, and even if the result was negative, it left me with the certainty of knowing.
I told my friend, my parents and my husband, and everyone was relieved and happy.
Except for me, because I still felt the harbinger of my doom. Every 20 minutes, there was my heart reminding me that something was amiss. The ECG told me that my heart would probably not suffer a cardiac arrest sometime soon, but it still left the problem unsolved. I went back to my friend's house, and we spent some time trying to relax and unwind. I tried to fall asleep, and told my husband to pick me up from there. I kept waking up every now and then, feeling utterly scared. Finally, my husband picked me up, and we came home.
The next day I worked from home, and my mother booked an appointment for a more detailed workup. I got other tests done, including an ECHO, and the doctor yet again confirmed that nothing was wrong with my heart. This time, I was taken a little more seriously, and doctor asked me if I'd been feeling very stressed, if I exercised enough etc. Sure, there was always work stress, but was it enough to trigger something like this? The doctor finally suggested prescribing pills that would sort of have a calming effect, and I realized that this was an antidote to something not entirely physical. It would also come with side effects of its own. As a result, I refused and we decided to wait for a while.
I started going to office again, and distracted myself with work. Well wishers suggested several remedies, like staying off junk food, avoiding the treadmill, eating more fruits, all of which I tried without any results. Within a few days, I got somewhat used to my irregular heartbeats. I began living with this unsolved mystery. At times, I questioned if I really was imagining it. If something was wrong with my mind rather than my body.
After a fortnight, when we were out for a weekend, I did not feel the symptoms for two whole days.
I mentioned this out to my husband, and he immediately pointed out: Hey, maybe it's the coffee. We were drinking that new coffee at home, and now you haven't been drinking it here. Let's switch back to our old one and see if the symptoms go away.
I did that, and miraculously enough, my symptoms did go away, forever. I looked up the correlation between the two, and found a little literature on it. However, it was not a well known enough fact that an average doctor could have known and helped me avoid a fortnight of agony and questioning my sanity.
Who would have thought that something as banal as coffee could impact something as vital as the functioning of my heart? It seemed to be a manifestation of the butterfly effect.While this was an exercise in resilience and patience, it also showed me that medicine as we know it today, is only the tip of the iceberg. Several symptoms are quickly dismissed off as mental, that default domain when a patient comes up with something unfamiliar. This leads to someone who actually has a genuine physiological illness question the validity of it, wonder if the doctor is right about it being psychosomatic, and go through so much mental trauma. I do not say this to undermine doctors, or their immense knowledge and experience. But it remains an unpalatable truth, one that you should always remember, in case you go through something that is undocumented. Mine was perhaps a very minor skirmish with this fact, but there are others that are life-changing. I write this to share the experience, and also to create more awareness on undocumented and un-researched illnesses.
P.S: Much after this whole episode ended, I read Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan, which is an account of her horrifying experiences with a rare type of encephalitis, which was misdiagnosed as schizoaffective disorder and resulted in her being sent to the psychiatric ward. Luckily for her, she found a doctor who was researching exactly this little known disease, and she survived and made it back to normalcy. It is an interesting read if you'd like to know more about what I've touched upon in the last paragraph of this article.
On a day which started as normally as any other, I found myself alone at home. My day began at 5a.m, and I headed to work after having breakfast. Work was as hectic as always, and around lunch time, I felt the weird sensation of a skipped heartbeat. The most likely first question in your mind, as so many others asked me during that time is this: how does a skipped beat feel? This was what it felt like to me: I felt my heart suddenly thudding into life, and realized that it had stopped for a teeny tiny second, for the space of a beat. The first time this happened, I attributed it to a one-off anomaly and shrugged it off. I was a healthy young person who'd just turned 25, and had no cardiac history.
Then, in less than half an hour, I felt the same thing happen again. This time, I took it a little more seriously. I tried to remember if I'd felt breathless, or if I'd had any left arm pain-- any signs of imminent cardiac trouble. Everything was normal. I even tried to recall what I'd eaten the previous day, and if there was anything suspicious. Again, nothing. Because I did not have any symptoms other than this, I decided to wait and watch. Over a period of two hours, I felt the same thing happen a few more times. Being fully engrossed in work, I ignored it and continued to go about my day. I contemplated going to my parents' house just to be cautious, and thought it sounded like a good idea. However, my workday stretched, and I ended up missing the bus that would take me there.
I stayed back, and headed home after finishing work. That's when the anxiety and jitters hit me fully. I wondered what was causing this ectopic heartbeat, if I'd suddenly developed arrhythmia, or if this was a warning sign of something else. A google search yielded many hypotheses, none too comforting. I called up my mother and asked for advice, and after listening to me, she told me to try and calm down and sleep over it. If the symptoms persisted, I could get an ECG the next day.
While she said all this to make me feel better, I could clearly hear the worry in her voice when she volunteered to come over with my Dad. By then it was pouring cats and dogs, and they could not find a cab, so that didn't happen.
It had started raining at my place as well, and I was starting to freak out. I prayed to the Gods and swore to give up junk food and lead a more healthy life. I felt the foreboding feeling that something was about to happen to me, and the anxiety got worse. I wanted to get an ECG, so that I could quell my fears with the certainty of knowing. But this brought up another question: I had to go alone to the hospital and ask for an ECG. Other dire fears confronted me: What if something was truly wrong and I had to be admitted? If there were decisions to be taken? I would have to do all this myself, till I could get someone to come. Should I ask a friend? Would it not be an imposition?
I spoke to my husband, who was in a different city, waiting for his flight which would get him home around midnight. He was worried that there was nothing he could do, but managed to calm me a little.
I decided to get an ECG, and called a friend, who convinced me not to go alone, and ask another friend, who agreed to come with me immediately(@Jarvis, I could not be more grateful to you for this! :)). I booked a cab to her office, and stepped out in the rain, feeling worried and upset. I was talking to my husband throughout the ride, and the cabbie missed a turn and ended up leaving me half a kilometre from my destination. I walked to her office in the rain, and we tried to find a cab to the hospital. We could get none, owing to the rain and the traffic, and finally walked to the hospital which was nearby. I took every step in trepidation, wondering if I should be walking at all given my symptoms.
Finally, we were at the hospital, and headed to the ER, where I asked for an ECG. I was sent to a room, and my friend was told to wait outside. I clutched my phone fearfully, waiting for someone to take my ECG. Within five minutes, I was hooked up to the machine. By now, I was feeling light-headed, and was imagining all sorts of horrible scenarios, and trying to reassure myself that the ECG would soon be over and then I'd know. The two nurses at my side fiddled around with the wires and the machine for ten minutes, whispering in a language I did not understand. I was almost convinced that they were trying to decipher my weirdly abnormal ECG and discussing if they should call the doctor, till I looked up and saw the monitor showing a flatline. It occurred to me that they did not know how to hook up the ECG, and they were probably whispering, fearful of their supervisor admonishing them for their ignorance. I sighed in comic despair: They were perhaps new to this, but why me, Dear God!
Finally, they got a third technician in, and he was able to get it working. We sighed in collective relief, for different reasons. I waited anxiously for a doctor to come in and interpret the results.
He came, and took a look, while I tried to read his face. He looked down at me, and asked me: Why do you think there is something wrong? I told him my symptoms, and he gave me a look of disbelief. I have never heard of this skipped beat before, and your ECG is perfectly normal. You're probably imagining this went unsaid, but I heard it nevertheless in his patronizing tone and look.
He asked me a few perfunctory questions, before dismissing me. You are alright. You may go.
To him, I was likely yet another paranoid person wasting ER resources. But to me, this was a very scary experience, and even if the result was negative, it left me with the certainty of knowing.
I told my friend, my parents and my husband, and everyone was relieved and happy.
Except for me, because I still felt the harbinger of my doom. Every 20 minutes, there was my heart reminding me that something was amiss. The ECG told me that my heart would probably not suffer a cardiac arrest sometime soon, but it still left the problem unsolved. I went back to my friend's house, and we spent some time trying to relax and unwind. I tried to fall asleep, and told my husband to pick me up from there. I kept waking up every now and then, feeling utterly scared. Finally, my husband picked me up, and we came home.
The next day I worked from home, and my mother booked an appointment for a more detailed workup. I got other tests done, including an ECHO, and the doctor yet again confirmed that nothing was wrong with my heart. This time, I was taken a little more seriously, and doctor asked me if I'd been feeling very stressed, if I exercised enough etc. Sure, there was always work stress, but was it enough to trigger something like this? The doctor finally suggested prescribing pills that would sort of have a calming effect, and I realized that this was an antidote to something not entirely physical. It would also come with side effects of its own. As a result, I refused and we decided to wait for a while.
I started going to office again, and distracted myself with work. Well wishers suggested several remedies, like staying off junk food, avoiding the treadmill, eating more fruits, all of which I tried without any results. Within a few days, I got somewhat used to my irregular heartbeats. I began living with this unsolved mystery. At times, I questioned if I really was imagining it. If something was wrong with my mind rather than my body.
After a fortnight, when we were out for a weekend, I did not feel the symptoms for two whole days.
I mentioned this out to my husband, and he immediately pointed out: Hey, maybe it's the coffee. We were drinking that new coffee at home, and now you haven't been drinking it here. Let's switch back to our old one and see if the symptoms go away.
I did that, and miraculously enough, my symptoms did go away, forever. I looked up the correlation between the two, and found a little literature on it. However, it was not a well known enough fact that an average doctor could have known and helped me avoid a fortnight of agony and questioning my sanity.
Who would have thought that something as banal as coffee could impact something as vital as the functioning of my heart? It seemed to be a manifestation of the butterfly effect.While this was an exercise in resilience and patience, it also showed me that medicine as we know it today, is only the tip of the iceberg. Several symptoms are quickly dismissed off as mental, that default domain when a patient comes up with something unfamiliar. This leads to someone who actually has a genuine physiological illness question the validity of it, wonder if the doctor is right about it being psychosomatic, and go through so much mental trauma. I do not say this to undermine doctors, or their immense knowledge and experience. But it remains an unpalatable truth, one that you should always remember, in case you go through something that is undocumented. Mine was perhaps a very minor skirmish with this fact, but there are others that are life-changing. I write this to share the experience, and also to create more awareness on undocumented and un-researched illnesses.
P.S: Much after this whole episode ended, I read Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan, which is an account of her horrifying experiences with a rare type of encephalitis, which was misdiagnosed as schizoaffective disorder and resulted in her being sent to the psychiatric ward. Luckily for her, she found a doctor who was researching exactly this little known disease, and she survived and made it back to normalcy. It is an interesting read if you'd like to know more about what I've touched upon in the last paragraph of this article.
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