From the heart

Most of you know I spent the majority of last year hiking through the Nevada desert on the Ruby Pipeline project.  A few months into the project, I noticed that I'd been experiencing a lot of heart palpitations.  I've had them from time to time since I was a kid, so they didn't really worry me.  But then I noticed I was having them about once a week.  I mentioned it to T, and he was concerned.  I mentioned it to my parents, and they were even more concerned.  My dad and both his brothers developed irregular heartbeats by the time they were in their mid-50s, and they wanted me to go get checked out.  So I waited until the project was over and I could schedule some doctor's appointments.  I told my regular practicioner, and he said it was probably no big deal at all, but he'd refer me to a cardiologist for an EKG.  I got the appointment and went in a little over a week ago.  They ran the EKG in the office, which was completely normal.  But considering my family history, the doctor also wanted me to have an ultrasound of my heart to look for any abnormalities, and to wear a monitor for 24 hours to record my heart rate and see if I was experiencing extra beats more frequently than I could feel.  They got me all hooked up, and I looked like the bionic woman for a day:

Heart monitor

Sleeping in that thing was a pain in the butt!  There were 2 more electrodes that you can't see on my sides, just below my bra band, and all of them had leads that went to a little monitor a little smaller than a deck of playing cards.  They said to put it under my pillow and forget about it, but I knew that wouldn't work.  I turn like a rotisserie chicken during the night -- I roll over a lot, and always counterclockwise.  If I put the monitor under the pillow, I'd be strangled within an hour.  So I found a t-shirt with a pocket and put it on backwards, since I mostly sleep on my front and sides.  I put the monitor in the pocket on my back, with the cords running over my shoulder, and safety-pinned it in.  However, due to the placement of the pocket, the cords needed to go over my right shoulder, which is the one that gets all the friction.  Sure enough, I woke up at one point in the early morning and it had come unplugged.  But I plugged it back in, and then recorded the problem in the little journal they gave me in case I felt anything while the monitor was recording.  I stopped back into the doctor's office took the next day so they could remove the monitor and analyze the results.  Then I had to wait a week. 

I finally heard back from the doctor yesterday, and they said that everything was fine.  The heart monitor didn't show any unusual heartbeats.  The ultrasound did show a very slight mitral valve prolapse, which means that one of the top valves in my heart doesn't close quite right.  However, this is really common among women and it isn't something I need to worry about.  The palpitations are caused by that irregularity in my heart, combined with the stress of dehydration on my system.  Seeing how I was hiking through the desert all day every day and frequently unable to stay completely hydrated, having more palpitations while I was in NV makes sense.  So everything is fine, and I don't need to worry.   Yay for good medical news!