Heart Broken

Five days ago I had a heart rate monitored placed on me. For the next 30 days it was going to monitor my heart activity and attempt to capture my "heart racing" episodes. Since they happen sporadically, this was the only way the doctor could make sure that it was caught in action. The doctor left me by telling me I shouldn't expect to hear from him until the end of the 30 days, unless I call him to let him know I had an episode.

The next day my doctor called me. I figured my monitor wasn't working correctly, but I was wrong. He told me that my heart dropped to a pretty low rate at night. Since he didn't understand why, he wanted to refer me to a heart rhythm specialist. He told me not to worry, and the heart rhythm specialist would be calling me. I cried right after we hung up. I was so confused, this wasn't the reason I went to him. I wanted an explanation about why my heart races. (You might realize at this point that I cry a lot, and you're right lol). In my defense I was scared. You only have one heart, and I had no idea what the doctor meant and what he thought it could be.

The next day my heart rate monitor was beeping at me around 5AM. When I grabbed my phone I saw that I had two missed calls from the heart rate monitoring company and a voicemail. I checked my heart rate monitor and it had a message displayed on the screen to call the heart rate monitor company. I called them right away and answered some of their questions, but I had so many questions of my own. I was scared. This thing woke me up and I had no idea why. They did tell me the doctor set up parameters on the machine, but they couldn't tell me my heart rate.  I had to wait until Monday. When we hung up, I cried again. I was so tired and didn't understand what was going on.

We had friends coming in town with their baby and dogs so they definitely helped me keep my mind off of everything. Part of their reason for coming down was for my friend, T, to attend a bridal shower (plus hang out with me). We had a blast at the bridal shower, but wearing a visible heart rate monitor was ridiculous and I had to answer questions about it. That night I was anxious about going to bed. I was scared that something was wrong with my heart rate while I slept. That night I fell asleep late.

The next morning I was woken up by a phone call from the heart rate monitoring company. I answered their questions and when I hung up, I saw a missed call from another number and a voicemail. When I checked the voicemail, I discovered it was the on call cardiologist from the hospital. I called his cell phone right away and talked to him for a little bit. Apparently he thought I might have lost consciousness and told me my heart rate dropped into the 30s. He told me he was going to call another doctor and he would get back to me. Yup, you guess it, I cried again. In my mind this must be pretty serious if the on call cardiologist is calling you from his cellphone at 7AM. I did get a call from him in the afternoon and he told me he wasn't that worried about me at this point since I hadn't fainted. He also told me the heart rhythm doctor was going to be seeing me during the week and that would be good. That made me feel a little bit better. That afternoon I had a mild flutter and pressed the button. Hell, I figured if they were monitoring me I would at least let them know something happened.

The next morning I called the cardiologist, and his nurse spoke to me. They were trying to get me an appointment with the heart rhythm specialist. About 30 minutes later I got a call and I was scheduled for the next day (today) at 11:20. They told me I had to fast. Yup, life didn't suck enough lol.

So I go into the appointment today scared. I meet with the doctor and he tells me that my low heart rate levels are the result of a long period of endurance training. Endurance training that is considered extreme, and starting to become harmful to my heart. His discussion with me seemed extreme, but he stated that my heart rate has become so low due to a reflex in my cardiovascular conditioning. If this type of conditioning continues, my heart rate will be predisposed to cardiac problems later on. He prohibited me from triathlons and told me to scale back on running. See, he explained that your heart rate is a result of the past 10 years of cardiovascular conditioning. I can't undue this in a matter of weeks. It takes time, lots of time.

His news hit me like a ton of bricks. Running is a big part of my life. It's a coping mechanism I use to think about my life, relieve my stress and work out in my head the things that weigh heavy on my heart (no pun intended lol). No triathlons? Are you serious? Scaling back on running? I had to go from 4/5 miles to 2 miles. My heart was slowly breaking as the news sunk in. He was asking me to change the lifestyle I've had for the past 14 years. Some of you might think this is great news. You don't have a serious heart condition, and you're right. However, this news is not the greatest for me. Plus, they still haven't figured out why my heart is racing. My original reason for even going.

As I type this, I feel sad. Sad that I have to change a part of my life that I love so much. I've done my fair share of other physical activity, but i truly love running. I love being outside finding new routes and feeling alive. I'm sure everything will be fine, but for now, I just want to be sad. I don't want to think about how to change everything in just one day. I'm sure this will take time, and I'm sure I'll feel better as time passes. On the somewhat plus side, I rolled my ankle last Wednesday at run club and just started getting a cold, so I can't workout. Lol, sigh.