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rivendellroseToday, I had an echocardiogram for the second time in my life (last one in 2008) and got fitted with a holter monitor for the third time (24 hour in 2008, 30 day in 2011, 24 hour again today, woo!). So yeah, the palpitations are at it again, and have been for more than a month, and they've been driving me up the freaking wall on and off, so here we are.
If you've never had a holter monitor, they stick electrodes to (*counts*) five, I think? places around your chest, which are wired to a little beeper-type-thing which you click whenever you have a symptom or event, and then you write in a little diary what happened and what you were doing. Or at least that's the theory. If, like me, you've been studiously trying to ignore your symptoms for the last month and a half, you go "eh, not a big one" and then "oh, shit, wait, supposed to click the button," scramble for the button, take down the time, then feel like you ought to write "yeah, whatever, it was tiny, but you said to note everything." This will be my life all day today, until this evening when I actually start getting the big ones that bother me, which always happen while I'm trying to sleep. Then I'll be scrambling going "goddamn it, I'M TRYING TO FALL ASLEEP AND YOU WANT ME TO HIT BUTTONS AND WRITE NOTES?!" and also trying not to strangle myself with the cords or detach a lead when I turn, or let my cat chew the cords. Which is a thing I had not thought of, but the tech who set me up said a lady once called her because her cat chewed through the cord and I was like "oh shit, that's totally something Theo would do."
If you've never had an echocardiogram... it's basically an ultrasound of your heart. So they have you put on a hospital gown for appearance's sake, but leave it open in the back and "off the left shoulder," which... at that point, I'm sorry, but why bother. Why not just cover me in a drape once I'm laying down. Anyway. Lay down, tech arranges you on your side with your left arm up by your head, and asks you to hold very still while she rubs an ultrasound wand around your chest (which, if you are female, basically means all around and onto your left breast), while occasionally orchestrating your breathing like a director arranging the world's most obsessive closeups. "Small breath out - and hold there. ...Okay breathe. Small breath out... hold there. ...Breathe."
This would all mostly just be interesting to me, except I've been on a ton of fertility hormones lately and I haven't had my period yet, so my breasts are so very tender right now. Taking off my bra fucking hurts. So this was, frankly, not fun. And then at the end they don't tell you anything, so you're left walking off going "Well, I guess if they'd seen anything hugely dangerous they probably wouldn't just pass me on to my next appointment..." I get it, they want to let the cardiologist go over the report and then give you the results. But still.
Also, we wound up having really good results from the egg fertilization! So now the ones that made it to the blastocyst stage are off for testing to make sure they don't have any huge dangerous genetic abnormalities that would lead to miscarriage and that, and then we will talk about putting one of them back in me and seeing what happens. Hopefully, pregnancy.
Other things that are happening include, um, work, feeling like I'm not doing enough work, feeling like I have too much work, feeling like I have taken too many hormones over the last month and this is now exacerbating my preexisting tendency to feel like I'm doing everything wrong no matter what... y'know, the usual. I have an appointment with my therapist next week, don't worry, and I really am pretty sure this is at least 90% "wow did I get flooded with hormones." I felt fine mostly while I was on them, but the aftershock has been kind of crummy.
If you've never had a holter monitor, they stick electrodes to (*counts*) five, I think? places around your chest, which are wired to a little beeper-type-thing which you click whenever you have a symptom or event, and then you write in a little diary what happened and what you were doing. Or at least that's the theory. If, like me, you've been studiously trying to ignore your symptoms for the last month and a half, you go "eh, not a big one" and then "oh, shit, wait, supposed to click the button," scramble for the button, take down the time, then feel like you ought to write "yeah, whatever, it was tiny, but you said to note everything." This will be my life all day today, until this evening when I actually start getting the big ones that bother me, which always happen while I'm trying to sleep. Then I'll be scrambling going "goddamn it, I'M TRYING TO FALL ASLEEP AND YOU WANT ME TO HIT BUTTONS AND WRITE NOTES?!" and also trying not to strangle myself with the cords or detach a lead when I turn, or let my cat chew the cords. Which is a thing I had not thought of, but the tech who set me up said a lady once called her because her cat chewed through the cord and I was like "oh shit, that's totally something Theo would do."
If you've never had an echocardiogram... it's basically an ultrasound of your heart. So they have you put on a hospital gown for appearance's sake, but leave it open in the back and "off the left shoulder," which... at that point, I'm sorry, but why bother. Why not just cover me in a drape once I'm laying down. Anyway. Lay down, tech arranges you on your side with your left arm up by your head, and asks you to hold very still while she rubs an ultrasound wand around your chest (which, if you are female, basically means all around and onto your left breast), while occasionally orchestrating your breathing like a director arranging the world's most obsessive closeups. "Small breath out - and hold there. ...Okay breathe. Small breath out... hold there. ...Breathe."
This would all mostly just be interesting to me, except I've been on a ton of fertility hormones lately and I haven't had my period yet, so my breasts are so very tender right now. Taking off my bra fucking hurts. So this was, frankly, not fun. And then at the end they don't tell you anything, so you're left walking off going "Well, I guess if they'd seen anything hugely dangerous they probably wouldn't just pass me on to my next appointment..." I get it, they want to let the cardiologist go over the report and then give you the results. But still.
Also, we wound up having really good results from the egg fertilization! So now the ones that made it to the blastocyst stage are off for testing to make sure they don't have any huge dangerous genetic abnormalities that would lead to miscarriage and that, and then we will talk about putting one of them back in me and seeing what happens. Hopefully, pregnancy.
Other things that are happening include, um, work, feeling like I'm not doing enough work, feeling like I have too much work, feeling like I have taken too many hormones over the last month and this is now exacerbating my preexisting tendency to feel like I'm doing everything wrong no matter what... y'know, the usual. I have an appointment with my therapist next week, don't worry, and I really am pretty sure this is at least 90% "wow did I get flooded with hormones." I felt fine mostly while I was on them, but the aftershock has been kind of crummy.
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Date: 2018-08-16 10:54 pm (UTC)...It occurs to me that I should have read this post before I brought up bloody Klingon soap operas. Oops. :P
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Date: 2018-08-16 10:59 pm (UTC)At least not for me. I'm sure they're very upsetting, sometimes, for the poor production assistants and continuity editors. Particularly when they have to recast some major role for the third time.
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Date: 2018-08-16 11:50 pm (UTC)Think of the Klingon soap opera fandom.
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Date: 2018-08-17 06:21 am (UTC)(Right, and that needs context: basically, I was handing off Enting to G and got a severe pain in my left chest. It didn't go away, and even half an hour later I was having trouble breathing and couldn't move for the pain, so G decided to call 999.
After hijjnks and various tests, they decided I'd just pulled a muscle and now I have to be careful when handling my tiny giant :P)
Fingers and toes still crossed that you'll soon have a tiny giant of your own on the way! Are you going to have them tell you the sex, or are you just going to let fate decide?
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Date: 2018-08-17 08:36 pm (UTC)*fingers crossed*
It does sound like a total bother in the meantime, for sure.
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Date: 2018-08-18 04:06 am (UTC)I had an echocardiogram about a decade ago to determine if a heart murmur was benign or the kind that requires antibiotics before dental work (for once in my life, it turned out to be the less complicated variant). Thankfully I was not hopped up on hormones at the time, so I didn't mind it. Having a kidney ultrasound sucked much worse; I guess they have a hard time getting the sound waves deep in there, so it felt like the operator was trying to break through my ribs.
I hope you get answers quickly re: heart palpitations!