Friday 3 June 2005

Pic of the day: Looking ahead. Screenshot from the anime Mahou Sensei Negima. (Incidentally, the guy looks a bit like I did when I was 10. I think. It's been a while!)

The next day...

In the morning, I called my doctor during phone hours. Well, "hours" may be too strong a word, it's from 8:30 to 9:00. But since it is 4 days a week, I guess technically it is hours. 2 hours for 2000+ patients? Amazingly, he took the phone after a couple rings, so people are probably not very eager to use this service after all.

What's even more surprising is that he seemed to recognize me. I think I have seen him around four times over these years, so I had fully expected him to not know me from Adam and at least have to quickly read through my journal or have me explain everything from the beginning. But he immediately remembered the part about the fast 1-hour walks. "Yeah, I was a bit harsh there" he said. I am not so sure about that. On the other hand, I am not so sure it has helped my hand much. Perhaps it has, because my hand has not been quite as bad as some of the earlier years. But this time it was not about my hand, but my heart.

I explained the whole thing, pulse watch and all. He did not sound any more worried than I had been once it was over and I didn't die anyway. He asked if I remembered whether the heartbeat had been regular or irregular. I told him that it rose in a regular manner, peaked and slowed in a regular manner. No skipping that I could sense. (Qualifier because when your heart beats 3 times each second it is kinda hard to keep track.) He told me that if it happened again, I could drop by the health center without an appointment, as they would be interested in observing it in action. Since it takes me around half an hour to get there, a little less if there is a taxi nearby, that was not a very useful offer. If this lasts for half an hour, I think an ambulance is in order instead.

The doctor told me that it was hard to figure out such disturbances of the heart rhythm unless you caught them in action. I already suspected as much, because I had been hospitalized for a night and a day a few years ago for a very similar episode. At that time however my heart did speed up and slow down, roller-coaster like, instead of just one peak like now. I still believe it is the same thing. In fact, now that I think about it, I am pretty sure I had some kind of stomach pain just prior to it, and had eaten yogurt (this time it was sour milk) just before. Not much of a pattern, admittedly, since I eat a lot of milk products, especially yogurt, and tends to notice stomach pain whenever it presents itself. But when things like these happen, memory tends to stick better.

I did not remember these details in time to tell him, though. There may be a chance later: I got an appointment at Thursday at 10:45. I hope I have not forgotten it by then. I told my Pocket PC to remind me, but I don't always check it at the right time. And by Thursday, unless it strikes again, it will all be a pale and faded memory. Time flows differently for me, the days are longer than other people's days, and thank God for that. I keep hearing how the years just buzz by, and it terrifies me. What good is really living to a ripe old age if I am not conscious of those years? Still, as the good book says, for those alive there is hope; a living dog is better than a dead lion.

***

In related news, I bought a bottle of cod liver oil with 40% omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 is the great thing these days, before that it was vitamin E, and before that it was optimized for vitamins A & D. Actually omega-3 is kinda "out" in the food fad industry now, it was replaced by olive oil I think, I am not sure what came after that. But omega-3 is still healthy. Dean Ornish recommends 3 grams per day; more than that and it is just treated as extra fat. According to Ornish, the big thing about it is that it reduces the chance of sudden heart stop. If I got it right, this is because it stabilizes the electrochemical pathways that synchronizes the heart, not because it dissolves the fatty plaques in the arteries. Back when it was all the rage, people actually believed it could do that. I remember meeting some elderly guy who was eating dried fish powder from fatty fish, and claimed it had healed his smoker's legs. But that was then. I'm not sure what is the miracle cure this year. I lost track after the extra virgin olive oil.

The workday was uneventful, as expected. But I did not exercise a lot that afternoon.