Skipping Beats
Since I was 18, my heart has done some weird things. My doctor didn't really listen to me and satisfied her conscience by having me get an echocardiogram, which I knew wouldn't show her anything, unless I luckily and coincidentally happened to have an issue in that small amount of time.
Six years later, with my random heart palpitations--fast beating, hard beating, skipping beating--I have finally sought medical help again.
For the past week, I've been wearing an event monitor. I have to wear three electrodes. One on each side of my chest, and one on the lower left side on my ribs.
There's two of them. Now, they don't give very thorough instructions with this thing. So for the first few days, I was wearing the electrodes in the same place. This is what happened:
The picture doesn't really do it justice, and now it's all flaky and weird, like I got burned. So anyway, I called them and they said to move it around/rotate positions so that doesn't happen. Well, that would've been helpful to know when I first called you to start this thing up.
So I guess it's constantly monitoring me. And I use the Samsung cell phone (which is huge, by the way) to report an event.
Then I have to call them to tell them about my symptoms. I have done so twice already. I had two other events, but they were very quick, and I didn't have time to push the button. They said to push it anyway when this happens because it will mark a minute before I pushed it to show irregularity. Also would have been helpful to know when I first called to activate it... Can you tell these folks don't really prepare you? I mean, how was I supposed to know what questions to ask at that point?
Some annoying things besides the rash... the pager-clip thing where the electrodes are attached really sucks... It doesn't stay clipped onto wherever I have it. The cell phone is huge. I can't wear dresses--only shirts and pants/skirts/shorts because the wires and pager thing need to have a place to hook onto. I don't think hooking it onto my underwear inside of a dress would be ideal. If I get these devices more than 15-20 feet away from each other, they start making some seriously obnoxious noises and beeping. It's woken me up while I've slept because I've blocked the signal or something. It takes time to put on in the morning. If I get sweaty like at the gym or wet like while tanning at the pool, the electrodes kind of slide right off.
Anyway, it's all an adventure, right? Something to tell the kids about. I hope they can tell me what's wrong when it's all over though, because this is quite an inconvenience.
Six years later, with my random heart palpitations--fast beating, hard beating, skipping beating--I have finally sought medical help again.
For the past week, I've been wearing an event monitor. I have to wear three electrodes. One on each side of my chest, and one on the lower left side on my ribs.
There's two of them. Now, they don't give very thorough instructions with this thing. So for the first few days, I was wearing the electrodes in the same place. This is what happened:
The picture doesn't really do it justice, and now it's all flaky and weird, like I got burned. So anyway, I called them and they said to move it around/rotate positions so that doesn't happen. Well, that would've been helpful to know when I first called you to start this thing up.
So I guess it's constantly monitoring me. And I use the Samsung cell phone (which is huge, by the way) to report an event.
Then I have to call them to tell them about my symptoms. I have done so twice already. I had two other events, but they were very quick, and I didn't have time to push the button. They said to push it anyway when this happens because it will mark a minute before I pushed it to show irregularity. Also would have been helpful to know when I first called to activate it... Can you tell these folks don't really prepare you? I mean, how was I supposed to know what questions to ask at that point?
Some annoying things besides the rash... the pager-clip thing where the electrodes are attached really sucks... It doesn't stay clipped onto wherever I have it. The cell phone is huge. I can't wear dresses--only shirts and pants/skirts/shorts because the wires and pager thing need to have a place to hook onto. I don't think hooking it onto my underwear inside of a dress would be ideal. If I get these devices more than 15-20 feet away from each other, they start making some seriously obnoxious noises and beeping. It's woken me up while I've slept because I've blocked the signal or something. It takes time to put on in the morning. If I get sweaty like at the gym or wet like while tanning at the pool, the electrodes kind of slide right off.
Anyway, it's all an adventure, right? Something to tell the kids about. I hope they can tell me what's wrong when it's all over though, because this is quite an inconvenience.
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