Last night I went to the hospital to find out there’s very little wrong with me. Let me explain.
On Thursday last week I decided to bike to the grocery store from my sister’s place, in search of sugar free bbq sauce. I was planning on making dinner with my Instant Pot, specifically pulled pork. I hadn’t been riding a bike on any serious level for quite a while, but the trip there was pretty easy, as it was mostly downhill. I found my sauce, and bought several other things because I had room in my backpack, then rode back with my bag at least 25 lbs heavier, on a route that was now mostly uphill. Cue frequent stops, panting, walking the bike for several stretches. The next day my side was a little tight, and I just chalked I up to overexertion. Dinner was lovely though.
On Saturday the tightness in my side seemed to have gone from 1 out of 10 pain to 2 out of ten, and my shoulder had joined the achey breaky party. Sunday it was 3 out of 10, so I resolved to go to my family doctor’s clinic on Monday.
The next day, I woke up, early afternoon because that’s how my body works, and the pain was about 4 out of 10. The phone at my doctor’s was constantly busy, so I called (*checks notes*) Health811 they call it now, and described my condition to a nurse. Being a bit dumb about these things, I didn’t make the connection to the fact that my GP had referred me to a cardiologist because my pulse runs high, but the nurse did, and recommend I go to the hospital because it might be a heart attack or something.
So I did that. They saw me pretty quickly, despite the emergency room being crowded, got me tagged (no radio collar or yellow spray painted number on my side though), and soon after did an ECG and a blood test.
After a while, as I waited with my sister (who was *concerned*), and we speculated wildly about the man near us with a bandaged finger who said he was bitten by a squirrel at work (I mean, sure, if he worked outside or with animal control that’s the easy answer, but what if it was office politics?), I was put in a room, got x-rayed, and eventually saw an ER doctor who said they tested me for evidence of blood clots and heart muscle injury, and found nothing other than my elevated heart rate. She said I could take painkillers, take it easy and follow up with my cardiologist. I asked “So the only thing really wrong is that my heart runs fast?”, she said “Yeah. Weird, right?”
When I got home, I cut off the tag, and ripped off All of the ECG pads, which also took a lot of body hair. The last 2 I didn’t find until I was in the shower today. At least the water made them come off easier.
Garden of Gnomes 