Hearts shouldn’t be beating 240bpm

Alternative title: The day my heart betrayed me

On the 17th of June, M and I were walking around town (as we do) and my heart decided to rapidly increase. I was a little worried but I’m not in the best shape of my life so I figured I would sit down and feel better. 

But I didn’t. So then I was like ‘oh maybe it’s anxiety’ (more to reassure my husband who was quite concerned at this point). I knew there was something wrong. My heart was going fast. And not just fast - my watch said 189 BPM. I could feel it beating faster. As we wrapped up supper at arguably the best sushi spot in Halifax, I simply suggested that we stop by the hospital on the way home - just to double check. 

Side note: I’m not sure where the gaslighting of going to the hospital has come from. I think I just am like ‘I’m not bleeding so I’m fine’ and want them to redirect their care. 

Anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever been admitted to anything so fast - even when I had scheduled appointments. The nurse tried to take my blood pressure but it wouldn’t read. She then sent M to check me in. He couldn’t do it fast enough - she desperately seemed to need a sticker to do my EKG - but I think she also knew that it would be ridiculous. 

Another side note: Nova Scotia really needs to get into the 21st century and combine our drivers/ID with health care card. I did not have my card with me - I know they can still find me in the system but then why TF do we have health care cards?

Once that was over - all I could think about was going pee. As they escorted me to a room (this spanned maybe 3 minutes), I just asked if I could and they wouldn’t let me. 

Once in the room, two nurses got me hooked up. I remember one putting his hand on my shoulder and saying ‘it’s really good you’ve come in. It seems your heart is doing some weird things and we’re going to take care of you.’ - shout out to them for recognizing that my unproblematic millennial trait was showing and I seemed to show I felt like I was bothering them. I note the nurse goes to M to tell him they are going to take care of me. He’s insanely calm - which I learn later was not actually true. More on that in a bit. 

Doctor comes in next - states the same thing I think. I notice that they are sticking larger pads to me. But I have the pulse monitor on my finger, EKG hooked up, so who even knows.  

They try to get me to do a couple things to get my heart to slow down before they stick me with adenosine (a word I learned after the fact). She then says that they are going to need to get some meds into me to slow my heart down. I feel M’s hand on my leg to remind me he’s there. 

All I could do in this moment was just simply, matter of fact, ask ‘Is my heart going to stop?’ 

Finally, they get the IV into me and get the med in - and burst a blood vessel. They gotta try again. I’m still in the same place, by the way. I feel like I’ve been running, my heart is still racing. At this point, I think it’s been going on for about 90 minutes. 

They get the IV into the other arm and it works. It literally felt like going from 100kmph to 30kmph. I could breathe. My heart was normal again. 

Honestly, if you’re breathing a sigh of relief here, just know that I basically cried because it felt like a bunch of pressure was released. 

I ask how M is doing - he’s good he says. The truth is - when they got me hooked up, he could see the monitor. My heart was doing 240bpm when I got admitted. I didn’t know this, but he said he felt like puking when he saw that. Watching your spouse/best friend/person/one true love in pain is legit the worst. I can only imagine how he felt knowing that I was essentially crying when we got to the hospital because I was out of breath, my heart was racing, and I was terrified. 

Shout out to the health care workers at the hospital (for privacy I won’t disclose) - they were so kind and patient with me. After 7 hours I got discharged to go home. I never had an EKG before then and by the time I left I had four or five. 

I’m good now. They said it might never happen again, or it could happen. I think there’s a lot to unpack around the mental challenge of knowing that there’s an unknown with your heart. 

But that’s probably for another day.