A bit delayed, but Wednesday Wonders...

I wonder why my heart decides to race.

Wendesday I went to my friend's house, had a wonderful dinner & delightful conversation, and as we were watching Mythbusters and relaxing, when my chest had a cramp and BAM! my heart started doing it's thing, beating at over 200 bpm! Chi's mom has a blood pressure cuff, so we put that on- 111/103, and 208 bpm. NOT GOOD. I took my meds, and 30 minutes later- with my heart still strong and steady at 200 bpm... Chi, bless her heart, took me to the ER.

Once we got there, every nurse and doctor who saw my BP and HR didn't believe the machines and kept taking my vitals over and over again. It took almost 45 minutes for 3 nurses to get 1 IV in my arm, and I have 5 bruised pin-pricks to proove it! The veins all but close down when there's not enough blood in the heart.

The diagnosis is supraventrical tachycardia, SVT, and to fix it they had to stop my heart and restart it again. SCARY. With 2 nurses holding my hands, and a doc massaging my carotid artery, they put medication into my tube in two different places... 1-2-3-- go. I was breathing normally, and then the heart monitor went silent, flatlined, and then I gasped and the monitor started beeping again- much, much slower. Just like they warned me, after about 2 breaths, it felt like 1000 lbs pressed through my body right to the floor, and that was it. My heart rate was down to 99, and stablized at 99 bpm for about 45 minutes before I was discharged.

Poor Chi! She was out of the room when they explained what the two medications would do, she got back as everyone was huddled around my bed, and then she saw my monitor flatline! I can only imagine how scared she would have been for those 10 seconds or so.

I went in for 1/2 day of work yesterday, and am just relaxing at home today. I'm not going to work any overtime this weekend either- of course, it means I'll have to make it up next week, but I don't want to push myself back into doing anything too soon. As soon as I'm done with this, I'm going to make an appointment with my cardiologist...