When I was pregnant with Levi, at the ripe ol' age of 39, I was healthy and happy and breezed right along. That is, until I hit about the 7 month mark and then something terrifying happened. As I lay in bed one night, my heart began to do weird thumping things in my chest. I ignored it for a while thinking it would go away but it didn't. I took my pulse and it was very irregular so we called the doctor. He said to come in to the office the next morning. So off I traipse to the office the next day and they hook me up to an EKG and then the fun began. They referred me to a cardiologist right away and I went for a bunch of tests. The one I remember the best was called a Holter monitor, which essentially is a 24-hour EKG. It records the activity of your heart over a 24 hour period. It showed that I was having PVC's (skipped heartbeats) at a rate of 15,000 in the 24 hour period. (yes, THOUSAND)
I ended up in and out of the hospital and having ultrasounds and non-stress tests on Levi every other day. I made it to about 37 weeks when at one appointment it clearly showed him in distress and they walked us over to the operating rooms and took him by C-section right away.
It took about a year for my heart to settle down and only occasionally throw PVC's. They never figured out why it happened but they consider it benign (as in it's not killing me) Now, when I get overly stressed, it acts up. My heart does strange thumping things which hurts my chest and I get short of breath. Yesterday was a particularly bad day. I never knew a heartache could be so literally painful.
P.S. I went to my doctor and got some meds and a follow up appointment with an electro-cardiologist. Ny heart issues are are due to funky electrical impulses so this guy should be the best equipeed to fix it.
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