March 1st, 2005
71/48
Mon 21 Feb, pm: Heart palpitations.
Tue 22 Feb, pm: Oh, they’re back.
Wed 23 Feb, pm: Today too it seems. Bit hard this commute home.
Thu 24 Feb: Nothing
Fri 25 Feb: Nothing
Sat 26 Feb: Nothing. Ride 60plus miles to Tim Sideways and stress about meeting Judith while carrying credit card :-)
Sun 27 Feb: Good recovery rate. Can’t even tell I rode yesterday.
Mon 28 Feb, pm: Jeez, the old tickers thudding a bit this afternoon.
Ring NHS Direct who tell me to ring G.P RIGHT NOW and get seen out of hours. Ring G.P. who tells me to get to A&E RIGHT NOW…
…Hello, my names Nick and I’ve been having heart palpitations this afternoon.
Sit down, cursing myself for not bringing a book or magazine. I can see myself being here in the waiting room for hours.
Just got settled.
“Nick, please”.
Flinkin’ Blip that was quick. Moved straight to head of the queue.
Two senior nurses give me a preliminary ECG, and look at graph. Straight into cubicle and wired up to various devices and monitored for an hour. (All the while someone in the cubicle opposite spends an hour telling staff, with a voice as if they have a tracheotomy, that “I want to die”. Aren’t hospitals jolly places?)
I’m asked lots of questions about my lifestyle. Am I stressed at work? Do I smoke? Do I exercise? When was my last blood cholesterol measurement?
BP is reasonably low for someone in A&E. But when it comes to resting HR it’s not so simple. We’re all used to seeing blood pressure recorded as two figures, but get this, so is my heart rate.
71/48.
Eh?
Basically my HR as measured by my circulation is ticking along at 48 BPM, but when measured by my ECG it’s 71. For every 2 actual heartbeats I’m receiving an extra, ectopic, heartbeat signal (which is the palpitation I can feel) that’s about twice the size of the norm.
Meanwhile my respiration is merrily causing alarms on the monitors: Anything under 5 breaths per minute triggers an alarm, and I keep hitting, 4, 3, and even one instance of ‘apnoea’ (no detectable breathing). Fun and games with asthmatics.
Apparently I have an ectopic heartbeat, and will be undergoing further observation and monitoring. I’ll be wearing an ECG harness for a day. And I should treat it as a normal day, commute to work, train if it’s a training day, etc.
As someone without BUPA, etc I’m just glad we have the NHS. And until they take my bikes off me they’re not stopping me riding.
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