TheLady-Doctor

After over a year hiatus, I am working on 'The Vanishing of Penelope Kelsey' again and adding new chapters. You can read it here-

www.fanfiction.net/s/12707220/…



In other news- 

The church across the street from my house refused to stop services, the minister was in the ICU on a ventilator last I heard. Lovely.  

In the past month, what was random short bursts of a-fib began happening more frequently, eventually sending me to the ER again when my vitals spiked and stayed up for 45 minutes. They eventually got them to come back down, but they stayed high for the next four days until I got in to the clinic again, and I felt really terrible. My resting heart rate is usually 53-76- it was running in the 80s to 90s and my blood pressure was starting to spike and drop.

I saw a different doctor- who was from South African and has a lovely accent. 

As far as we can tell, whatever triggered the first incident set off a chain reaction, and now my body has started to respond to pretty much every stimulus by releasing a burst of adrenaline. You can watch it happen on the monitor. 

So, now I'm on beta blockers to stop the effects of adrenaline, and an SSRI to try and adjust my neurotransmitter levels and hopefully stop my brain from registering everything as a threat. 

Since all the testing for a treatable physical cause- tumors, thyroid problems, etc- came back clean, there's really nothing we can do but symptom management. 

It's been a week- the beta blockers appear to be working since my resting heart rate has dropped back down. 

The SSRI- that was really weird. I've been on them before, I was expecting it to do some funky stuff to me for a couple weeks until I adjusted. Well, for five days I felt- not bad, more like I'd taken a low dose of psychedellics. Not enough to stop me from driving my kid to school or going about normal daily tasks. 

Then, five days later- this was last Saturday- I was at a Halloween party, sitting at the table playing Joking Hazard- when all of a sudden, I felt completely normal again. 

It's possibly one of the most bizarre experiences I've had in a long time. I expected things to gradually fade as I adjusted, but it was literally like someone threw a switch and turned it off. 

Anyway, that's pretty much it. Just have to wait and see what happens. 

Ok, it's been awhile- 

So, here's what's been going on- 

After I ended up in the ER, they couldn't figure out what was going on with my heart, and referred me to the clinic associated with the hospital for follow up. 

Went in and met my new PCP, explained about the heart issues and my back problems. 

After listening to all my failed treatments, she gave me a medication I haven't tried before, which change the conductivity of nerves in the spine. 

After about two weeks, almost all of my chronic pain problems went away. 

She also had me monitor my vital signs, to try and see what's up with my heart, since there didn't seem to be any obvious reason it was being stupid. 

Last time I went in, about a week ago, she gave me a muscle relaxant, since I still have some sore spots that felt like soft tissue stuff. After a few days on that, I managed to get my hip array adjusted and start working the stiff parts out, I'm sore there when I get up but after moving around for awhile it starts to go away. So everything not a nerve problem looks like it can be fixed with PT. 

I'm now waiting on an appointment to have a 48 hour heart monitor strapped to me, in hopes that they can catch my heart when it acts up. 

Based on the vitals I've gotten, my blood pressure seems fine when my heart starts ramping up. That means it's most likely atrial fibrillation - when the atrium (top chamber) of the heart starts beating rapidly. The good news is that it's not causing any damage to my heart- the bad news is that it can increase the chances of blood clots which can cause heart attacks, strokes, or pulmonary embolisms- which I've had in the past. 

The problem with a-fib is that it happens randomly, and there's really not a whole lot that can be done as far as treatment aside from putting the patient on blood thinners in hopes of avoiding any clots. But I've been on multiple blood thinners before and, surprise surprise, they either don't work or have super nasty side effects, so unless it starts happening super often, that's not something we really want to do. 

So, we've got some answers at least, and I am definitely feeling better. I started working at the local library for a few hours a week, it's about a mile away which is once again within walking distance. 

I am cautiously optimistic about the future. 

First off, if you're worried, I'm fine-ish. Probably not actually dying any faster than normal. 

I have some health issues anyway- but for the past couple days my heart has been extra weird. It's normal for it to jump randomly to 115-120 for a minute or two. This morning it started hitting 150 BPM and riding at that for 5-6 minutes before dropping again for 30-45 minutes and ramping up again. Left me actually feeling sick and shaky. 

There is a clinic a couple blocks from here, I drove over there and called 911 from their waiting room- figuring it would be both easier to find than the house and they at least have a defib there if my heart decided to totally spaz out. They took my vitals while I was waiting- the doctor there was very nice and assured me that even though my heart rate was super high it seemed to be beating OK, so even though I should absolutely go to the ER I probably wasn't actually about to drop dead. 

They ran a ton of tests at the hospital, did x-rays and a ct scan of my chest, I spent the day hooked up to machines. My heart was obviously running really high on and off, but they couldn't find any immediate reason, and it didn't seem to be doing any physical damage. Eventually my heart rate dropped to less concerning levels, they sent me home with instructions to make an appointment at their outpatient clinic, who will probably set me up with a portable heart monitor. 

So, that's how I spent my day.