Further updates, updates!
Mmmph.
Apparently, I do not only have sinus tachycardia, but atrial tachycardia (a specific form of supraventricular tachycardia) as well - based on the in-depth report I received in the mail today.
(When I saw the initial report at the clinic last week, my eyes caught the word ‘tachycardia’ and I automatically assumed it was the mildest form (sinus tachycardia). Must. Not. Make. Assumptions. Next. Time.)
The rate ….. is characteristically 100-160 beats/min …. difficult to distinguish from a sinus tachycardia. Diagnosis is important as it may lead to dilated cardiomyopathy if left untreated.
I don’t know what dilated cardiomyopathy is and I can’t be bothered to find out more about it because I am sick of medical terms, but it still sounds like major W-T-F to me.
But at least atrial tachycardia by itself is generally not life threatening.
Oh and yes, here’s the oh-so interesting 24-hour ECG graph summary obtained from last Friday’s hook-up to that silly monitor.
No guesses for how many hours I slept that night.
And those little ‘peaks’ in heart rate during the period where I was asleep indicated the times I woke up to toss and turn due to sheer discomfort.
As for my progress over the past one week - I would say that the past three days (today included) hasn’t been too good. The dizziness, fainting spells and heart palpitations are still out in full force and I am struggling to ignore it all as I go about my daily life.
Bah.
Signed up for the Canon Photo Marathon 2008, to be held on the 18th October.
The competition involves three segments - each with different themes lasting about three hours each. Participants would be assigned the theme at the beginning of each segment and they are required to go around, gathering snapshots and submitting their best work at the end of the three hour time frame before being assigned the next theme.
Nifty, huh?
Was initially contemplating whether I should register for it since I wasn’t too sure whether I would have recovered by then. But heck - this is just too good to be missed.
In the meantime, I’d work on polishing up on my techniques and use of lighting with Mojojo (that’s what I named my camera - a Canon Powershot SX100) so that I needn’t wrestle too much with settings and exposures and all that jazz on the actual day itself.
Speaking of which, I am eyeing quite a few DSLR models from Canon as of late. I feel that I’m quite ready to upgrade now, since I’ve progressed quite a fair bit from my former point and shoot with automatic mode phase. Mojojo, with his fair amount of manual functions has been serving me well enough but … I want more!
But of course, it’ll be a while before I actually go out there and get a new one. The prices are hefty, so I gotta’ think carefully.
Hmm.
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Presenting, the girl who loves colourful balloons. Captured last Sunday at my uncle’s 60th birthday celebrations, courtesy of my younger cousin, using Mojojo on … automatic mode.
Yay for balloons.
Much as I swear by the manual mode these days, I can’t seem to trust others to use them properly. Take my younger cousin for example - he only managed to get the above photo after six attempts, the first five using manual mode, and finally, his first success on automatic mode.
He struggled and struggled and after each photo, he’d go … “Eh, Brenda! Why (is the photo) so blurred/dark/grainy, ah?”
But I love the photo anyway.
Mainly because there’s a balloon in it.
It was balloons galore at the event, by the way. Loads and loads of balloons floated around us on the ceiling, in various shapes and sizes and colours. It made me ecstatic, and I wanted to take all of them home with me upon leaving. I eventually took only two in the end since there were a fair amount of kids around and it wouldn’t be fair, right?
There were a couple of balloons that were overly inflated, and ended up taking on a weird shape - elongated at the bottom and veering towards slightly round at the top.
My little nephew happened to be enchanted with one of those elongated balloons and had it tied to his pants such that it followed him everywhere he went, which I found really cute.
Until my smart alec cousin poked me in the side and went … “Eh, why is there a t*sticle following Luke around, ah?”
OMGGAH.
Being attached to a mobile ECG monitor for almost a day really feels like crap. But it’s over now so … yay!
Basically, it involved having five wires (with electrodes at the end) being attached all over my torso, and secured in place with so much surgical tape that I felt as stiff as a … piece of metal. All the wires were connected to a monitor which was kept in a pouch secured around my waist.
There was also this blue button on the monitor which I was supposed to press each time I experienced my usual symptoms, and I think I ended up punching the button a total of about ten times.
Can’t shower for a day, which was really quite unbearable for a clean freak like me.
I couldn’t sleep either. Practically squirmed the entire night because the surgical tape made my skin feel really itchy and by the time I woke up, the sensation was similar to having ants crawling all over me. Ack.
Naturally, I felt like I could hug the nurse who removed all the wires for me this morning. She’s a very nice one too, unlike the b*tchy one who attached all the wires for me yesterday. She kept me distracted by talking to me about everything under the sun because well, having tape ripped off isn’t very pleasant as well, isn’t it?
After waiting for about half an hour or so, I was called back to the clinic for a review.
And man, the graphs and whatnot that the little device managed to output was … damn bloody interesting.
Basically, it was like a graph showing the changes in my heart rate ever since 2pm yesterday (when I got the wires attached) until about 10am today (when I got the wires removed).
Plus, the doctor could even tell what time I went to bed because my heart rate started decreasing (and became really stable) at around 3-ish in the morning. It was like … ooooh! I began dozing off around this time and began to regain consciousness at around this time! How absolutely cool is that?!?
I’ll scan the graphs in when I receive them in the mail next week. Hahaha, I just found it really fascinating. (Although I’m not sure whether everyone else will think so.)
Oh, and yes - the results.
No abnormal heart rhythms, which was really good news to me because it means that it’s highly unlikely that I’ll die of cardiac arrests or faint due to missed/extra heart beats or whatnot.
My heart rate’s on the high side though, a condition termed inappropriate (persistent) sinus tachycardia (although my case seems more like the specific version, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), both of which is neither excessively serious nor dangerous, but causes discomfort (due to heart palpitations) and potential fainting spells.
Again, no medications. I just have to live with it because it’s correlated with my chronic low blood pressure as well. So, it seems like this period of consistent giddy/fainting spells is not going to see its end yet. :(
The doctor told me to gradually start exercising again though, because it might help me recover. (I completely stopped my usual walking habits and all strenuous activity since mid-June when the symptoms started.) So … I guess I’d start by slowly increasing my walking distance (providing I don’t start feeling faint) and perhaps move on to roller blading and cycling again and see how it goes. If there’s improvement, then good. Otherwise, I think I’m screwed.
(MITHI - WE CAN GO TO SOUTHERN RIDGES TO EXPLORE SOON!)
Like, finally.