Looking Forward to 2024

2023 was okay. I really have nothing to complain about regarding life in general throughout 2023. 

Well . . . then again . . . that's not entirely true. Mostly true, but there was that one thing . . ..

The thing that happened on April 1st. Of all days, it had to happen on this day. This was the day I drove myself to the ER that's 40 minutes away, after standing up from my recliner and feeling my heart take off. It was like I had just run the 100 meter dash, giving my all to cross that finish line first. Only I didn't run the 100 meter dash. I merely stood up from my recliner.

I was on my way to take a shower, so I continued to do so, hoping my heart would slow down and go back to my usual 70ish heart rate. In the shower, my heart just kept on, and the more it didn't slow down, the more scared I became. So I finished the shower, got dressed, and drove myself to the ER. That drive was surreal. I just kept thinking: if I pass out, I hope I veer off to the right, into the bare cornfield (yeah, my kids have given me a lot of grief over this stunt) .

At the ER, the in-take person checked my heartrate immediately. 147. I was then ushered into a room and all kinds of activity began. The longer I sat, the slower my heartrate became. Eventually, after about twenty minutes, it was down to 70. My blood pressure was 113/74. My pulse ox was 98-99%. All my stats were great. The ECG came back normal. All the blood tests came back normal. No sign of heart attack or stroke. Nothing. It really did seem to be an April Fools joke on me.

The ER doc had no answers. I asked what I was to do if this happened again. The answer was to return to the ER. 

Which I ended up doing two more times. Once in October and once in November. Both times, the results were the same. Nothing could be found for what is causing the tachycardia. 

In between the second and third times in the ER, I had a stress test completed. That ended with the cardiologist patting me on the should as he was walking out, saying, "Good news. You're going to live." The nurse who ran the test looked at me and said, "The only other people who do as well as you are the firemen who have to come in for a stress test to make sure they are fit to do their job." Still no answers.

I wore a heart monitor for 72 hours. Nothing. 

I had a CT scan completed. Nothing.

The cardiologist wants me to have a loop recorder implanted to record my heart over a longer period of time. I haven't scheduled that yet, and I'm not sure I will. AFib has been ruled out. Blockages have been ruled out. And he even said it's not an emergency to get this done anytime soon given that all the tests have shown absolutely nothing.

To help me monitor myself, I bought a smart watch with a heartrate monitor and lots of other features. This watch has given me so much peace of mind. When I feel my heartrate increasing, I sit down and breathe through it. Thankfully, most of the events have lasted less than a few minutes. 

Then, the other day, something happened was the proverbial light bulb moment. 

Every time before my heart has become a galloping pony, I get this very strange feeling. It's difficult to explain, but it's like my entire insides is tremoring. It's very slight. I also become very warm and have to take off the sweater or sweatshirt I'm wearing. I keep my house at 65, so it's not exactly too warm. For whatever reason, realizing that both of these were happening just before my heartrate increased was a moment of clarity for me. 

A few weeks ago, I used the anxiety feature on the watch when I felt this happening. The anxiety needle was off the chart. I did the suggested deep breathing for a bit, and the feeling lessened. My heartrate came back down, but for most of the day, it was up then down then up then down. The other day, I could feel the tremors beginning. I used the anxiety feature, and again, the needle was off the chart. It had been quite a while since breakfast (I've become really bad about eating regularly), so I made a smoothie. Ten minutes later, the anxiety needle was all the way back down to the bottom of the scale. A couple of days later, as I was making breakfast, I could feel the tremors beginning and my heartrate was increasing. I noticed that I was again very warm though I was walking around in a t-shirt. I measured my anxiety. Off the charts again. I cut an orange, ate it, and ten minutes later, it was halfway back to normal. Twenty minutes later, it was all the way down in the green.

Now I'm reading everything I can find about low glucose levels. What I've found is amazing. While I try to not go to the internet for health issues, reading about hypoglycemia has been fascinating. I have had several of the symptoms on and off for months. I'm not 100% certain I am hypoglycemic, but all the arrows are pointing down this road.

I have a doctor's appointment in late January. From now til then, I'm going to keep track of when I feel the strange tremors and if eating a piece of fruit or drinking fruit juice helps. I don't drink sodas. I don't drink fruit juice, I don't eat much candy. I don't eat a lot of fruit. If adding fruit and juice into my daily diet helps, that's an easy thing to do.