listen to your heartbeat

Starting Sunday morning I've been listening to my heartbeat.  Off and on.

It doesn't skip  a beat, but every few beats there's one that's a bit more of a thump than it should be.

Kept me awake a little bit last night.

Since it's been going on more than a day I figure it's not going to kill me.  No real discomfort other than the ill timed thumps.  No sweating, no nausea.  Just thump.

I finally decided this morning that I should tell Mary, after all I didn't want to keel over and not have her know what had been going on.     She suggested I call my doctor not the oncologist.

She wasn't terribly concerned since she was familiar with the symptoms.

We called and they wanted me in RIGHT NOW.  Wonder why?

Well, Mary drove me in and read while I was called in to the little room where I would be examined.

There is nothing I find so embarrassing as having my shirt off while someone attaches things to my chest.  I have fat in all the wrong places. Very lumpy.

So my doctor's most ancient nurse dragged a cart with a little machine on it and had me lay down and start attaching the little cups.  I didn't get a good look at them so I think they're cups.   I really don't know what they are.

But she stuck them on while I concentrated on the ceiling.

The test was over very quickly and my shirt was back on and the doctor came in and listened to my heart and explained a few things to me.

The beats were regular, and normal.  He pointed out the parts where the beat starts and that big spike (and I forget what that means) but the gist of it was that those little peaks vary a little bit in regularity.  And beats that take place too far apart & and then too close together cause the thumps (we're talking milliseconds).

He said he had heard a couple of them when he was listening.

It appears that I don't have quite the Swiss watch ticking away in there that I used to.   But it's nothing that I have to worry about.

If it doesn't go away or gets worse I could always have a monitor attached.   I wonder what that would be like?

The last monitor I wore was for reflux disease and a little tube had to be put down one of my nostrils.  The calibrating was done with a much wider tube and gave new meaning to the motto: "up your nose with a rubber hose".  They put the cream to deaden the pain up the nostril that was too small for the hose (deviated septum) and then ran out of time so they put it up my other nostril without any.

It would be attached to me for an extended period of time but my doctor would get good data.

I don't want to do it.