AFTER SEVERAL EXPENSIVE and bothersome tests, modern medical
science has determined that I do, in fact, have a heart. Figuring
out what went wrong with it is another matter. About two months
ago, as the deadline flies, the old ticker came out of the gates
without a warning shot and pounded hard and fast for hours. On
medical dramas, they’d call this tachycardia and order “15 cc’s” of
some medication, “stat!” Concentrated, deep breathing finally
brought the beats back to something approaching the normal pace,
but there was a problem: For days and then weeks after, the rhythm
was all wrong. It would catch and skip in my chest, and it seemed
like it might be good to determine what was going on in there.
That’s easier said than diagnosed. It turns out that medical
matters of the heart can be almost as mysterious as the
metaphorical variety. So far: Blood has been drawn and analyzed, an
EKG has tested the body’s wiring, a treadmill has induced stress,
and more electrodes have been attached to my body than Dr.
Frankenstein attached to his makeshift monster. My chest looks a
bit like Steve Carell’s in The 40-Year-Old Virgin after
that botched wax hair removal attempt. All of this has been mostly
for naught from a diagnostic perspective.
Doctors did manage to find one thing, but it’s blush-worthy.
They finally detected some “premature ventricular contractions,”
which the definitive Mayo Clinic website informs us are “extra,
abnormal heartbeats that begin in one of your heart’s two lower
pumping chambers”—the ventricles—and that “disrupt your regular
heart rhythm, sometimes causing you to feel a flip-flop or skipped
beat in your chest.” Bingo! The online guide calls these “very
common” and says they occur “in most people at some point.” What
the Minnesota writers of diagnostic manuals don’t describe is the
embarrassment that comes along with explaining to interested
parties that you happen to be a premature ventriculator. All of a
sudden, everybody becomes a teenager again.
Besides, my ventricular cacophony is likely more symptom than
cause. I may never know what started all the trouble, and maybe
that’s for the best. The original incident has not repeated, knock
on wood. Every day going away from it, the heart has felt better,
stronger, more even, whole.
To run the risk of sounding like a very young, very blonde
Hayley Mills, I’m glad that this happened. I’m glad that it
happened when it did, and I’m glad for the world it opened up to
me. One old and dear friend, a true-blue conservative, was going
through the diagnostic process at the same time as yours truly. We
swapped theories and complaints and jokes. We wondered how many of
these very expensive tools of medical diagnosis would still be
afforded to us under Obamacare, if the law clears the final hurdle.
I will admit to a palpitation or two when I went in to be fitted
with a 24-hour Holter monitor on the same day as Chief Justice John
Roberts sided with the liberals on the Supreme Court and made that
one of two possible outcomes in November.
Other friends and neighbors of every political stripe came out
of the crabgrass to tell me their heart stories—of childhood
surgeries to correct birth defects, of trips to the emergency room,
of batteries of tests and suspenseful waits for the often
indeterminate results. A few folks shared stories they hadn’t even
told their own families for fear of upsetting them. These
confidences I will take with me to my grave, of course. At this
point, it looks like something other than my runaway heart will
have to put me there.
