Bioinic Woman

For a couple of weeks, I've been having something happen that I don't know exactly how to describe. Heart palpitations, maybe. Irregular heartbeat. I'll just be sitting at my desk, or driving, or sitting reading, and my heart will suddenly make a thump, like it's beating harder, or faster. I liken it to the feeling you get when you're apprehensive about something, like when you remember something bad that you'd momentarily forgotten.

Or being startled or frightened. But nothing like that is happening.

It's not a completely unprecedented feeling--I've had a heart murmur since I was a child (although doctors lately say they can't hear it, so who knows?) and I've had this happen in the past. The last time I remember it being noticable enough that I went to the doctor for it was probably ten years or more ago. I remember going to the doctor and having an EKG and several tests run, and being told that there wasn't anything wrong that they would find, and it would probably go away, and I guess it did.

When I was a child I had a lot of tests. I don't know how old I was, but I remember having a series of barium x-rays--that made an impression on me. I was thinking about that today, about how frightened my parents must have been. They were young, and I was their first child; how scary that must have been for them.

And you know, I'm still their kid, even though I'm fifty years old. I didn't call and tell them anything until today, after I'd seen the doctor.

I called my gynecologist--the only doctor I currently see on a regular basis--and got a referral to a cardiologist, and I saw him today. They took a fairly extensive medical history, I had an EKG, and then saw the doctor, who asked me some questions, felt my pulse, listened to my heart, and told me that he didn't think it would turn out to be anything (and that he couldn't hear the heart murmur, either).

But he said there were several things we should check for, just so they could be eliminated, so he had me make an appointment for an echocardiogram and a stress test, he had me go give some blood to test for thyroid problems, and he wired me up to a Holter monitor that I have to wear for 24 hours to continuously monitor my heartbeat. I've got five electrodes stuck to my chest with wires running to a black box about the size of a transister radio, which I've got slung around my neck on a strap.

It's quite weird, although not too terribly uncomfortable. I'm not sure how it's going to work in bed, though, and one fairly funny thing is that I can't get my bra off.

I was wearing one that's sort of like a sports bra, i.e., it doesn't have any hooks, it just goes on over my head. Four of the electrodes are attached across my chest below the bra, and one is above it, so it's caught between the wires. After I got home, I wanted to take it off, but it obviously wasn't going to happen. Bob didn't believe me, and had me pull it down and off over my feet, which got it off my body, but there wasn't anywhere to go after that.

He suggested unhooking the offending electrode, then hooking it back up quickly, but I didn't really want to risk messing up the recording. His next suggestion was to cut the bra off me, but I didn't want to do that, either. He asked me if it was one of my favorites -- well, not especially, no, but I wasn't in favor of destroying a perfectly good garment. So I pulled it back up and put it on, and I guess I'll be sleeping in it tonight and wearing it tomorrow until mid-afternoon, when I unhook everything and return the monitor to the doctor's office.

I feel a bit like the Bionic Woman. "Gentlemen, we can rebuild [her]. We have the technology . . . "