The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself.
Publilius Syrus (~100 B.C.) Maxims
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Something about my heartbeat didn’t feel the same, didn’t feel right. When I attended the cardiac rehabilitation program at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, the EKG monitor showed some marked downward spikes several times a minute, just after I felt some kind of missed drum beat in my heart. I had lain awake at night, worrying what these missed beats meant, waiting for the next one.
As a result of the changes in the heart, I now had frequent “pre-ventricular contractions” -–the heart rhythm was sometimes out of sequence, particularly when I exercised hard.
There is something about the heart beating irregularly that is a fragmenting experience, that throws one into a state of anxiety. Clearly, the anxious mind thinks, this skipping in my heart must mean I am about to die, or have another heart attack.
I was told by the cardiac nurse, who had never experienced PVCS, not to worry about them, that the electrical signal for the heart was finding a new path through the scarred tissue, and this was causing the pre-ventricular contractions. Right, Hakuna Matata... Don't worry, be happy. It took months to get used to this new off-beat rhythm in my heart.
Apparently though, irregular heartbeats don’t always mean that one is going to die. Hakuna Matata, indeed.
Something about my heartbeat didn’t feel the same, didn’t feel right. When I attended the cardiac rehabilitation program at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, the EKG monitor showed some marked downward spikes several times a minute, just after I felt some kind of missed drum beat in my heart. I had lain awake at night, worrying what these missed beats meant, waiting for the next one.
As a result of the changes in the heart, I now had frequent “pre-ventricular contractions” -–the heart rhythm was sometimes out of sequence, particularly when I exercised hard.
There is something about the heart beating irregularly that is a fragmenting experience, that throws one into a state of anxiety. Clearly, the anxious mind thinks, this skipping in my heart must mean I am about to die, or have another heart attack.
I was told by the cardiac nurse, who had never experienced PVCS, not to worry about them, that the electrical signal for the heart was finding a new path through the scarred tissue, and this was causing the pre-ventricular contractions. Right, Hakuna Matata... Don't worry, be happy. It took months to get used to this new off-beat rhythm in my heart.
Apparently though, irregular heartbeats don’t always mean that one is going to die. Hakuna Matata, indeed.
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