Pages

Friday, March 22, 2013

Heart health and poor decisions.

Sometimes Google lets me down. Not often. But occasionally it happens.

Whenever I have questions about my health, I go see my doctor I check online. I don't have health insurance and I do not want to know how much an EKG costs without it; Google is the next best thing. Not really.

I have been having heart palpitations all. freaking. day. It feels like my heart is hiccuping. You know when you're in the middle of a bout of hiccups but you're not actually hiccuping and you can feel the anticipation in your diaphragm and you are hyper-aware that you're not hiccuping but one is on the way? It's that same feeling, but in my heart.

Apparently Google is not an adequate replacement for a trained and licensed medical professional because all it will tell me is that heart palpitations are either completely normal and harmless...or they might kill me. And it won't tell me which side of the fence I'm currently on. Thanks for nothing, Google.

Can you believe the nerve? (Obviously I am being sarcastic. Go see your doctors for an accurate and informed diagnosis, ladies and gents. And for the love of corgis, do not listen to any of my medical/lifestyle/hairstyle advice.)

So I was laying (lying? I can never remember which one it is. Damn. Useless college degree...) on my bed and staring at my running calendar:

I use a corgi puppy wall calendar to keep track of my runs. You're allowed to be jealous.

I was trying to decide if I should go for a run. I wasn't really feeling it since it felt like my heart was trying to bust free of my chest and run away. (That's a slight exaggeration) But I don't really have very much wiggle room left in my training schedule. (Read: none at all) The half marathon is in two (!!!!!) weeks. I decided that if I died during my run, I wouldn't need to worry about the half. And if I survived, then at least I got some sort of run done. 

Ladies and gents, do not follow my example. Sometimes I do really stupid things. Running while experiencing some sort of cardiac upset probably doesn't even make the Top 5 List of Dumbest Things I Have Ever Done. (#1 is driving in LA; #2 is believing the fraternity brother at the fraternity party that he would show me, and not my friends who apparently have bladders the size of swimming pools, where the bathroom is - he actually did, but hot damn that could have gone downhill very fast) It probably (hopefully?) wasn't harmful. But the safe route would have been to sit it out and consult someone who knows anything about cardiac-type-things.

Anyway, I decided to keep the run short since this is my first back-to-back run in about two months. And because my heart is on the fritz. But since it was short, I decided it should be fast. Kindly re-read the last paragraph where I mention that sometimes I do stupid things. We will see if I pay the price tomorrow.

Good news: I didn't die (Although whether or not that is good new is subjective) and I didn't notice my heart palpitations while running. Bad news: the palpitations came back once I stopped running. Damn.

Hopefully they will be gone tomorrow. Hopefully I will be alive tomorrow. Today I am thankful for cardiologists because someday when I have health insurance and can afford to see a doctor, I'm going to pay one a visit! Go visit your cardiologist for me! (Not really...unless you actually need to see your cardiologist...)




No comments:

Post a Comment