Update for all my wonderful well-wishers

I am writing all this out for those who are interested (Carrie :-)), but if you are not one of them, it will not hurt my feelings at all. :)

First of all, none of what is going on with me is life threatening!

But it is disconcerting when your heart rate is elevated, and somewhat erratic, for several hours on end.

A few years ago, I had several episodes of Supraventricular Tachycardia. My heart rate would shoot up to 250ish and just stay there. It involved taking a wonderful drug, via IV, called adenosine. Adenosine kind of reboots the heart. It feels awful. Just awful. Feels like you are going to die. Kind of like when you get the wind knocked out of you and you are waiting to breathe again, except you are waiting for your heart to beat again.

I give you that history to explain why I am a bit sensitive about these heart-rate-related issues. But, since having my hyperthyroidism treated, getting my insulin pump, and making sure I don't have too much caffeine or take cold medicine, I have been without incident for three years.

This time, instead of SVT, I had regular old tachycardia with some arrhythmia thrown in for good fun. My cardiologist does not think this is the same problem as I had before, but he is going to follow up with a battery of tests and has given me a prescription for a beta blocker to take if it becomes a chronic problem. (It did happen again today, but for only two hours and then it resolved.)

To add to the mix of possibilities, after I had my appointment today, I went by the hospital and got my lab results because they had tested my thyroid but not had the results back before I was discharged. My Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) is low, which means that my thyroid levels are too high. I already had an appointment scheduled with my endocrinologist for Monday (how convenient!), so I will talk with her about this.

My cardiologist mentioned dehydration as a possible source of my tachycardia, and I remembered that they had to stick me four times to get blood out of me. They got the vein, but only a trickle of blood. That points to dehydration as well.

So, after all that drama, this could be a matter of a confluence of needing to adjust the thyroid meds, being dehydrated, and having a heart that sends an extra signal from one of the chambers to the other, giving it a tendency toward episodes like this. The funny thing is that I drink a pretty decent amount of water, but had just this week had added a daily 30 minute walk to my routine, and may not have added enough water to compensate for that. The body is wonderfully complicated.

I feel lucky that I have such wonderful doctors, and am in such good health given my host of medical issues.

And friends. I feel lucky to have such wonderful friends.

Especially the cyber-friends, who don't even know me IRL, but still care so much.

I also feel proud of myself that I have been taking such good care of myself and eating right and exercising. I hope you don't mind that I give myself that little, public pat on the back. Just a few years ago, I was quite negligent, and fatalistic, about my health. But I have since decided that life matters.