It was last Thursday night that I put the little clip on my finger at bedtime, taping a rubber-coated wire to my finger and wrist so that it stayed in place, and I turned the brightly flashing monitor unit face down under my pillow. It took me almost an hour before I actually fell asleep that night, but once I did, I thought I slept pretty well. Woke once during the night because, well, when one take sixty-gajillion pills during the course of a day, one drinks a LOT of water. I packed the monitor back in its bag the next morning, and left it on my front porch, as instructed, for pickup. I didn't know how long it would take to get results, so I more or less put it out of my mind.
I missed a call this afternoon. (Actually it happened a couple times today, but maybe restarting the phone will make it ring when calls are coming through.) The voice mail I found was from my doctor, telling me that the results were in. My oxygen saturation levels were good throughout the night. My heart rate started out pretty well, but before dawn, it slowed significantly. I knew going in that I'd been told I had bradycardia (defined as an adult with a heart rate slower than 60 beats per minute, the opposite of tachycardia). What I didn't know was how often it was happening. I thought it was an occasional thing, like when I had surgery or had to take prescription painkillers at night (something I try not to do anymore, unless it's an absolute emergency). The new doc seems to think it's happening anytime I sleep on my back, and she told me not to do that anymore. Like that's so easy to control. It's all well and good to suggest sewing a button on the back of a nightshirt to annoy me in my sleep, so that I don't sleep on my back. There are flaws in this plan. For one, I'm used to annoyances in my sleep -- I share a bed with very needy cats. There's always somebody clawing at my shoulders, so that I'll raise up the covers just enough so they can snuggle next to me and put their heads on my pillows (and put fur directly against my nose). For another, I almost never wear a night shirt. I get too warm to do that. I assumed that I overheated every night from being a "woman of a certain age." Now I have to think about this a little. Are my hot flashes actually because my heart slows down at four am, my body temperature cools, and the relative temperature of the room is just too high compared to my own?
I finally caught up with an old friend tonight. The man has seen him a few times, once last year, and a couple times when he was here without me. But for years and years, he and I kept missing each other, no matter how far in advance we scheduled meeting up. This time it actually worked, and I got to meet his wife and kids for the first time. (It has been a LONG time since I saw him last.) I just wish I had felt better during dinner. I tried to keep up with the conversation, but that same heaviness I felt in my chest a few weeks ago was bothering me all night. Still is. Obviously I'd told the primary care doc about it, as I promised I would. Now I have to wait until my referral is sorted out (another long story), so I can finally complain about it to a rheumatologist. I hope I'm not putting too much faith in the ability of this specialist. I feel like I've been keeping my life on hold, waiting to get the treatment plan from her. I have this idea that every part of my body will change immediately once she sees me. What if it's not that easy? What if she's not that good? Or if it takes months of trying six or seven different therapies. Or if she tells me the same shit I've heard for 30 years, that there's nothing really wrong with me, I must be lying or depressed, and that she doesn't see anything out of the ordinary about my test results. If I have to go through that again, after getting so close to an answer, it will break my heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment