We adopted Doc — a name given to him by his previous owners — about 2.5 months ago from the local animal shelter. He's 8 years old, which is about middle age for a Beagle, and if I told you he barely makes a peep, you probably wouldn't believe me. But it's true — he only blows his horn when someone walks by outside with a dog, and not even then when I take him down to the city where that sort of thing is common.

He does have an irritating habit of trying to mount every female he encounters, however, but he makes up for it by making an excellent vacuum cleaner where food is involved.

I called my GI doc three days ago to discuss my ongoing issues, and I was able to get an appointment for this afternoon(!). The nurse that did the preliminary vitals and whatnot stuff was unfamiliar to me. She told me that the GI folks were borrowing her for the day from Cardiology downstairs. For some reason she decided to listen to my heart… and she took a really long time doing so. I don't remember anyone listening to my heart before except at my PCP's, and never for so long.

"Hmm," she said.
"'Hmm'? What does 'hmm' mean?" I asked.
"I think you have a heart murmur… has anyone ever told you this before?"
"Uh, no. No one's told me that before."
"I see… let me listen again."

Another long pause while she listens.

"Yep, sounds like you have a murmur. Let me tell [Dr GI] so he can have a listen."

We then go on to have a five minute discussion about drugs, psychopharmacology, clinical pharmacy, and people with entitlement issues. (WTF)

My doc comes in, says hello, we talk about a great many things like we always do (last time we talked about the ins and outs of the laws governing anesthesia and CRNAs in the state of Massachusetts and this time we talked about Thanksgiving, travel, and energy efficiency and how it relates to electrical engineering. I love my GI doc — he's great.)

I was substantially less freaked out at this point, and we both almost forgot the murmur. He listens with me sitting up and lying down. He confirms it, suspects PVCs — something I've suspected I've had for about four years now — and we talk cardiologists. Turns out, one of the guys downstairs is an arrhythmia specialist, and does a lot of work with people my age.

–

I've been having mental battles with myself over the last couple of weeks whether I'm merely a hypochondriac, or if there's a real problem with whatever body part is letting me know it's there. I don't like to diagnose myself; I don't like to be one of those people. But I know that 1) I don't like going to the doctor every other week 2) I don't like taking pills and 3) I do my damnest not to be one of the people who taxes the system. I think that sort of rules out hypochondriasis.

Dropping a diagnosis on someone can be very disconcerting, even something relatively benign (most likely) like arrhythmia. Intellectually, I know that heart arrhythmia aren't a huge deal. I know millions of people have some kind of arrhythmia. I also know that most people have PVCs at some point during their life, and that rare is the person who has never had a skipped or extra beat. I have suspected that I have had some kind of heart trouble since the first time I walked up some stairs and I couldn't get my heart rate to drop for about five minutes.

I thought it was just the amphetamines I was taking at the time for ADHD. I'm certain those didn't help.

Since then, I've had four EKGs, and had my heart listened to by four doctors and countless nurses. They've all told me that I'm fine; there's nothing wrong. I heard it so many times, I believed it. I chalked it up to mere anxiety.

I'd just like to tell the world that I'm fucking tired of people ruling out something *actually* being wrong simply because I'm young. Delve deeper. Refer, if you must. Sitting here in my chair, sipping my decaf Columbian, this revelation explains a few things that I noticed were different about myself since since first grade.

I was always a pretty strong long-distance runner, but I suspect that's simply because walking was never (mentally) an option. I DID notice (and other parents noticed) that it took me longer to recover than the other kids. Where I might run a mile in 7 minutes or so, it would take me 45 minutes to an hour to get my breathing under control where other kids would be fine in 10 or 15 minutes.

Being in first grade, I thought nothing of it the first time someone said something to me about it. My chronic ear infections and multiple cases of severe poison ivy tended to be more pressing.

In junior high and early high school, I had a paper route, and despite biking 5-10 miles every day loaded down with newspapers, my CV endurance never really got beyond a certain point. When I played lacrosse in high school, my heart felt like it was going to explode pretty regularly. Moreso than the other kids.

More recently, while at the gym, I've hated cardio. There are days where I can run for 45 minutes to an hour and be fine, except for the very long recovery time afterwards. Other days, as soon as I move past a walk, I can feel my heart skipping beats. If I continue on, I get lightheaded and have to sit down. (Otherwise I'll fall down.) The more regular I am with cardio, the worse this problem is. It doesn't get better, it gets worse. Oh, and there's also the fact that about 10% of the time that I take a deep breath, my heart skips. (This is why deep breathing doesn't work for me when it comes to managing panic attacks.)

Of course, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm too young to have anything wrong with me. 19? 21? 25? Fuck it, it's all in your head. Maybe these R tards should read Groopman's book and try to take some of the principles to heart.

So while I was a little upset today at being informed that I have a heart murmur, I am somewhat comforted to know that I'm not mentally defective (at least not in that way ), and that perhaps I have an answer. At last. Yes, I know murmurs come and go. They're not always present while the provider is listening. But a Holter monitor was never discussed. Maybe I should have been more pushy. But like I said, I didn't want to be one of those people.

–

Back to diagnosis dropping before I close. Knowing something in your mind and reconciling it with the emotional reaction you have to this input are two completely different animals. In fact, logical reconciliation doesn't come until later, if at all.

I have been guilty of being somewhat dismissive when someone tells me something that's obviously bothering them. If I know it's trivial, or a problem that's easily managed, you tend to not think of it as a terribly big deal. Familiarity with and exposure to a disease state causes a recalibration of Normal. Perhaps even indifference.

But nothing is trivial, even if it's not serious or life-threatening. Not to the person receiving the news. Nothing. (Unless they're drugged out of their mind, like I was when they said "Hey dude you have Crohn's." I just didn't give a fuck at that point.)

Oh, and what takes the cake is that when I got home from work tonight, and informed my family of this revelation, my mom laughs and says "Oh yeah, I have a murmur, too." and my grandmother pipes up and tells me she's got one, too. What the fuck, people. TELL ME THESE THINGS so when I'm asked if there's any history of illness in my family I can give the correct answer. I know my grandfather died of a heart attack, but I always thought he was an isolated case and it was because he was a lifelong smoker and alcoholic. :rolleyes: But no, apparently most of my grandmother's brothers and sisters and my own aunts and uncles have murmurs, too.

The mind boggles. Apparently this information is trivial.

This is not cool, and it's only come about recently thanks to working 6 on and 1 off.

When I had time to work out regularly, this wasn't a problem. I just don't have the time to work out at all right now — and yes, it's not simply a matter of "making time" — the time does not exist during the day for me to do this.

Things were winding down after a cookout yesterday, and I was going to let my cousin drive my new car. Now that I'm quite proficient at driving a stick, it's rather difficult for me to just toss me keys to someone and say "Here! Have fun!" whereas before it was a relief to let someone else drive.

So I usually have to drive for a few minutes and THEN switch to get my overwhelming desire to drive MY car out of my system.

Anyway, we were driving on some back country roads in Windham in a really wealthy section of town when I feel something touch me just above my left ass cheek. Like something had landed. I flinched and swatted at it. A split second later and BAM. It felt like I'd been stabbed. No burning, no itch just a fuckload of PAIN.

I jam on the brakes — it so happened that I was approaching a stop sign — slapping at the spot swearing like a sonofabitch. I jump out of the car and start dancing around like a maniac.

My cousin's freaking out because she has no idea what's going on, because neither of us saw the hornet. I still didn't know what really had happened at that point. I just knew that I felt an uncontrollable need to jump out of the car and dance around screaming "FUCK" at the top of my lungs.

"What the fuck! Jesus fuck what the fuck was that FUCK FUCK FUCK You've got to be fucking kidding me what the FUCK how the fuck did that WHAT THE FUCK JESUS CHRIST FUCKING FUCK on a fucking motorFUCK that hurts like a Fucking sonofaFUCK What the HELL, man. FUCK jesus tapdancing FUCK on a fucking FUCK what the CHRIST FUCK FUCK FUCK You've got to be fucking KIDDING ME. Fuck!" Ad nauseum for a solid 60 seconds.

I was completely incomprehensible. In total freak-out mode. I forgot how much it hurts to be stung by a bee, and having it happen while driving made it all the worse…

But of course, the icing on the cake was this family going by on their bicycles — mom and dad with three kids all under the age of ten — watching me dance around in the middle of the road screaming "FUCK" at the top of my lungs swatting at my ass with both car doors open, my cousin staring at me bug-eyed trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong with me.

We finally locate the hornet, and somehow it manages to fly away (I hope you die in a fire!), and I calm down enough to actually try to crane my head around to see where it got me.

Fucking bastard got me just above my right ass cheek. I still have a bit of a welt, and it's been nearly 24 hours. I have NO idea how it got into the car, or how it managed to get me THERE on the RIGHT HAND SIDE practically smothered in the seat without either of us seeing it before it happened.

I can only imagine what I must have looked like dancing around. Hahaha…

When I got back into the car, I was amazed that the engine was still running. I don't remember pulling it out of gear and ripping the handbrake, but there it was, parked all nicely. Somehow. Thankfully. Otherwise it probably would have rolled ahead into the family riding by…

Here's a picture of one of its bretheren:

[Props if you can identify the compound on my shirt.]

Since most of my readers work in the medical profession, I thought I would post it here. Anyway, feel free to pass it around to friends, relatives, medical students, pharmacy students, people you hate, you know, whatever.

I hope to include a form for submitting new words in the future.

MeDic for Word (and any other program that uses plain text dictionaries).

Cheers!

[tags]Medicine, pharmacy, biology, chemistry, spelling, transcription, stenography, dictionary, grammar, word, microsoft word, hacks, freeware[/tags]