My Broken Heart
Last night, at about 6pm, I was sitting at my computer watching a Christopher Hitchens debate while switching back and forth between YouTube and Tumblr. It was just like any other night for me.
As I was watching Hitchens destroy some moronic rabbi, I started to feel a rise in my heart rate. Considering that I was basically resting and not working, the pounding of my heart was worrying. As it started to beat faster and harder, I decided to get up and start walking around my home, eventually finding myself needing something to drink. So, I wen to my sink and drank a tall glass of ice water.
My heart was beating so fast and so hard by this point that I was in pain. I had hoped that it would just settle itself and I assume I’d feeling better in a few minutes. I was wrong. After about 3 or 4 minutes, I decided to count my heart rate. I counted to 25 in about 10 seconds and then lost count due to being dizzy. Then I tried counting it again, and only got to 25 within a ten second time period before I lost count again. Something was seriously wrong.
I don’t have a car, and I didn’t feel comfortable calling 911. I knew that my parents were visiting my brother’s house just a few blocks away, so I decided to phone there. His girlfriend answered the phone and I asked if my parents were there, and if so, could I please speak with one of them. After what seemed 5 minutes (but only 30 seconds), my mother came on the line. “Come get me, I think I’m having a heart attack!” I desperately wailed into the phone.
By this point in time, both of my arms were starting to feel numb, sort of like when one of your limbs go numb but very different at the same time. About 20 seconds after I hung up the phone, they were definitely numb. It took about 3 minutes for my parents to get here and get me into the car. We rushed to the hospital’s emergency room where I waited for about 5 minutes before someone would even listen to me. Finally, a nurse got me hooked up to some machine that read my heart rate. She asked me a series of questions, such as if I smoked, was doing any drugs etc. I wasn’t. I was just watch YouTube videos and reading.
They then put me in a wheelchair and wheeled my ass into some room and told me to get onto the bed. They told me to take off my shirt and then started hooking me up to some machines that instantly reminded me of some sort of mad scientists secret laboratory. They started poking me with needles and all this other shit, drawing blood from both arms and my ear. Yes, my ear. By this time, my heart rate had dropped to what I assume was half the rate it was going when I called my brother’s house, 145bpm.
The doctor then stood beside me and said, “This will make you feel gross, but it will only last a second” as she stuck some needle into my vein. Within 5 seconds I was stoned off my ass, but 30 seconds later that feeling was gone.
So, hooked up to 3 machines with an IV, oxygen and some other shit, I laid in the hospital bed hoping for the best.
The doctor then came to ask me a series of questions. She asked if I had been eating any herbal supplements or taking any form of steroid. No, was my answer. Then she asked if I took anything to bulk up while working out [I workout, but naturally], and I told her that I had been eating a new kind of protein bar, but since I am a Vegetarian, it was my primary source of protein and not for bulking up. She didn’t seem too concerned about it.
After running blood tests, urine tests, heart tests and a series of other tests, she told me that my heart rate was rather fast still, but there was no irregular beating pattern. There was nothing wrong with me other than a fast beating heart, as far as she could tell. Since I was at rest when this all took place, she fears there may be some sort of other problem that is not detectable by the tests that she did, and then proceeded to tell me that I would need to be hooked up to some sort of portable machine for 24 hours that monitors my heart. However, I would be on long list, waiting for several other people to finish using their limited supply of machines.
As for my arms? Well, I was told that my arms went dead because I was breathing so hard. Due to the excessive exhaling that came with my fast beating heart, I lost a large amount of the carbon in my blood and that, I’m told, was the cause of the numbness. That means it was a symptom of the problem, not a cause. That made me feel a little bit better. I’m still worried that they didn’t find the reason my heart was pounding so hard. I swear, I’ve worked out really hard in the past and I’ve had my heart beating as hard as I though it possibly could. I was wrong. Almost dead wrong.
Just after I finished my urine test, the doctor came into the room and shut the door behind her. Every naughty fantasy I’ve ever had was about to come true, I hoped. Instead, she asked me if I had been doing any cocaine or meth, to which I answered an honest “no”, and that was enough for her to let me out of the hospital without any meds or anything. She simply said that she had scheduled an appointment with a specialist and that I would be on a list waiting for that heart monitoring machine.
Today, I feel like I’ve got a massive hangover. It must have been something to do with the dope she gave me. I afraid to do anything. I don’t want to get my heart rate up like that ever again. It was scary as fuck. I hope nothing is seriously wrong with me, I’m too good looking to die.
The worst of it all? My health card expired and now I’m being billed nearly $300 for my 3 hour visit. I can’t afford that! *sob*
you should try to get some kind of health insurance asap… if not, a discount plan. any kind of coverage would be good… but now with that heart incident on your record and the fact that there has been no diagnosis so far, may hinder your eligibility… you should still try to get some if you can… i dont know where you are, but if you need some help with that, email me… i sell health insurance nationwide. and im licensed/appointed with all the major carriers in almost every state.
