catherine's running efforts

While I was at work the hospital called and said that a cardiologist wanted me to meet with an electrophysiologist. So I went in in the afternoon and found out that part of my heart hasn't been beating right. Since it's the bottom part it's more of a concern (like some people have no symptoms and some people die), so they admitted me to make sure that I respond okay to the medicine that should fix it.

I'm pretty mad about the whole thing. I'm mad at myself for not going to med school or even taking anatomy and chemistry so that I'd be able to understand more about what's going on, and for believing the person who told me in high school that feeling my heart pound sometimes was normal. I'm mad at society for not figuring out how to fund more pregnant woman and calcium channel blocker studies. I'm mad whoever posted the picture of a two-headed calf on Wikipedia's entry for teratology. I'm mad at every doctor who's listened to my heart and didn't think anything was wrong.

But I'm grateful that I'm at a good hospital. I'm grateful that Eric was able to spend the night here with me. I'm grateful that I'm otherwise healthy.

Still in the hospital. They switched the medication from verapamil to diltiazem, and the new one has helped my heart rate to go down and has reduced the PVCs. I might get to go home this afternoon. And everyone (3-4 cardiologists and an OB or 2) says that the baby should be fine. And they could take me off the medicine after I give birth so I can breastfeed, and I could have the surgery really soon after and only miss 24 hours of feeding and then be normal again. So right now I'm just crossing my fingers that they won't want to increase the dose (it was suggested by someone this morning), because I think I'd say no to that. Apparently it's at the higher doses (okay, probably way high) when the bunny fetuses in animal studies start dying.

All in all, I guess it hasn't been too bad. Yeah, there's been a lot of crying, but that's because I worry a lot about the baby. Eric's pretty tired, and I know he's stressed about keeping up with his schoolwork, but the weekend is coming. The hospital kind of blows, but most of the doctors and nurses and aids are really nice and helpful. I have an awesome TA who can teach my class for as long as I need, and people at my job at the church office building are fasting for me. And at least it's something that *can* be fixed, even if I have to wait until after baby comes (hopefully healthy and un-defected) to have the surgery. 

Plus, apparently all this time I may have been working off of fewer productive beats - like if my heart rate is 80, counting the "appropriate" beats it's 40. The bad beats don't happen as much during exercise, but maybe fixing the problem will eventually help me run faster.

I stayed home from work today (but taught my class) to catch up on rest. I also looked up my diagnoses (premature ventricular contractions and sustained ventricular tachycardia) online (it's weird that I didn't do that in the hospital, but it's probably because I spent most of my internet time looking for stuff about the medicine and fetuses), and it made me kind of scared. Most of my worry had been about how everything would affect the baby, and I forgot to worry about what could potentially happen to me. Anyway...I've decided to stop looking up things on the internet for awhile. :)

I went to the gym with Eric in the evening since I'm supposed to do whatever physical activity feels okay, and I just did some super wimpy walking with a small incline on the treadmill for an hour. I was kind of scared to do it, but I figured that whatever's wrong with my heart is better now than it was a week ago, and I exercised a week ago and was fine. It felt good to move my legs, and I didn't at all feel dizzy or light-headed, but I'm pretty sure (according to the monitor on the treadmill, but who knows how accurate those are so also Eric checked) that my heart rate didn't get above about 55. That seemed weird to me, so I'll ask the doctor about it today. I actually felt really good for the rest of the night, though (no palpitations). And I decided to stop judging people who look like they're doing wussy workouts on the treadmill.