Some of you may not know why I've been away so long. In a nutshell, I've been feeling pretty awful for many months now. I have had progressively worse experiences with weakness, breaking a sweat, shaking...and all with minimal to no activity. What scared me the most was when I walked to the neighboring grocery store and almost didn't make it home. I found myself thinking that if I made it a few more steps, I could lean on a tree, railing, stop sign, you name it. When I was maybe 100 yards from my front door, I felt my body giving out on me as the world started to turn black. Luckily for me, a neighbor helped me into her car and blasted the air-conditioning until I recovered. Frankly, I haven't gone very far on foot since - it has felt too scary and too risky.
Since I have lupus, I've been assuming for quite a long time that it was the root of my problems. The f-word that I hate to use, a flare of the lupus, was probably what was making me so tired and weak and sweaty and sickly. I was pretty unhappy about it, but finally acknowledged that I had to suck it up and probably take some steroids so that I could feel better. When you don't have enough strength to shower and do anything else on the same day, something has to change.
So I saw Dr. Mike and told him that I was having a stinking flare and that I felt awful and I needed help. And then he stopped me in my tracks by telling me that it wasn't the lupus, it was my heart. Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit. They ran an EKG that showed nothing other than a fast heartbeat, and I was given a recommendation to see a cardiologist. Incidentally, I decided to have an upbeat, positive attitude, because I've only lived this long out of sheer meanness and a stubborn inability to give up.
I have to admit that I was a bit worried about going to see Dr. Claudia, though. I was worried about getting the usual medical sermonizing. Katrina, your heart isn't working well because you're too fat. You need to lose weight, Katrina. You have to give up sugar, salt, and fat. If anything tastes good, you can't have it. Only skim milk, and no butter. I imagined myself having an impassioned discussion with the doctor and telling her if I can't have butter, just kill me now, because margarine ain't no friend of mine.
Well, none of the feared lecturing happened. When I met with the doctor, she said she was fairly confident that I didn't have a blockage because the blood flow to my limbs was good. My EKG was unremarkable, but my pulse was 120. Dr. Claudia said that when we hear hoof beats we look for horses, not zebras. So we started with me wearing a monitor for two days. There was nothing much of note on that, other than my pulse going as high as 167 with little to no activity. Then we did an echocardiogram, which was sort of fun for me, because I was able to watch my poor little valves opening and closing more than twice per second.
The view of my heart showed a strong and healthy organ (and yes, I do in fact own a heart, so quit calling me a heartless whatever the heck). There were no signs of damage from the runaway heart rate, thank goodness, just the normal slight thickening that would be expected at my age. So with no answer, it was time to rule out the zebra, which would be an adrenal tumor. In some 30-odd years in the medical profession, Dr. Claudia has only seen or heard of three people with this problem. Strangely enough, the diagnosis is made through a 24 hour urine collection which looks for byproducts of excess Adrenalin.
This test was negative too, so it was up to me to determine what action, if any, to take. I had been told on a previous visit that a cardiac surgeon would treat tachycardia (fast heartbeat) surgically. They would go in to the heart and kill off the areas that make the heart beat, and then install a pacemaker to make the heart able to beat at all. And since the heart can't beat if the pacemaker isn't there, you're screwed if the batteries run out. Or as I say, cancel Christmas. (Dr. Claudia says don't buy any green bananas.)
Trent asked my doctor why I was feeling so weak and tired all of the time, and she said it's pretty simple. It's like I'm running a marathon 24 hours a day. So now I'm taking a tiny pill twice a day, a beta blocker, to slow down my runaway train of a heart. Okay, it's not exactly like a runaway train, it's more like a car that you parked on one of those steep hills in San Francisco and you forgot to set the parking brake. Whoops! After only a few days on the medication, I'm having a bit less distress, and I'm looking forward to feeling more like my normal self soon. Hahahaha! I just said normal! Okay, my version of normal!
I hope this means that I am, in the words of Gene Autry, back in the saddle again!
XOXOXO,
The Lunatic
AKA Katrina
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