Sunday, September 23, 2012

New Symptom

I finished my fifteenth and final radiation treatment Friday. I saw the doctor afterwords and mentioned that I'd been experiencing slight arrhythmia for the past week, off and on and at odd moments. I'll have several episodes in one day and have none for three. Marty's been taking my pulse at these moments, confirming that it's irregular and also rapid, around 100. My normal resting pulse is 72, sometimes lower. The only time I've experienced rapid heartbeat on its own was at the end of a run. Three years ago, the night before I was to be discharged from the hospital after my second transplant, I had rapid heartbeat (205 bpm) and arrhythmia together. Let's just say the crash cart was brought in and I was hooked up to every monitor there is and injected with a drug that made me feel like I was dropping into the abyss. I took a medication for a week and it never happened again.

The doctor said I should quit drinking coffee (ain't gonna happen) that if it continues, I should see a cardiologist. It happened last night, briefly.

I don't think cardiac arrest is in my near future, but I'd hate to survive leukemia and have my heart fail. You can be sure I'll be seeing a cardiologist, just one more doctor to add to my extensive cadre of specialists.