Slice of Chaotic Life

I was not looking forward to the stress test of my heart. I mean, I thought it would be useful, but I was scared. I have never exerted myself after I realized early in my childhood that this was what triggered my asthma. I was probably born with the asthma, because it manifested as soon as I began running around as a toddler, at the age of 2-3. There were no asthma inhalers in rural Norway at the time, and the old doctor gave me half a chance to survive to adulthood, according to my parents. So naturally much of the conditioning to never exert myself must have started early, before I could even speak fluently, much less think rationally. It must have been drilled into me in a prerational, perhaps even preverbal, mode.

It is in light of this that you must see my feelings as I was approaching the moment of what, to my subconscious, was the Deadly Sin. Every time as a small scared boy I fought to draw each breath, I knew that it was my punishment for having run or jumped or done something unruly. In grade school I had finally overcome this tendency, and around the age of ten it began to disappear even from my dreams. For something like 45 years I have held back, always held back, always restrained myself, for more than 40 years I have done this even in my dreams. And now I was about to go against all that. I was scared. As I came to work, I already had a bronchial cough, eerily similar to the one that often started my asthma attacks. My body was already reacting to the crime I was going to commit two hours later. My heart was pounding, my hands were unsteady and my knees were weak. Even though I logically knew that I would probably survive, I did not feel it. And I was not sure what my chances were, after 45 years of never getting really winded, and rarely breaking a sweat (except in summer).

I had brought my Aeromir inhaler (is that a word play on Boromir? Seriously, Aeromir??) and used it at the mentally induced asthma approach. Well, it may have been some other irritation of the bronchi,  I guess, but the timing suggests it was at least to some degree nocebo (the opposite of placebo). Eventually my bronchi loosened up. The effect lasts something like 3 hours, supposedly, so it was still active when I went to the heart specialist. I was in doubt as whether to take a second dose (it says 1-2) but went with just the first.

After sending a mail to the heir of the Chaos Node, I was called in to the doctor. I undressed my upper body and the nurse fastened a couple electrodes on me, then told me to lie down on a bench. I was going to get an ultrasound of my heart and large blood vessels first. The doctor arrived and greeted me. He was an older man, looking to be in his 60es, and from the west coast of Norway from his dialect.  He got a call on his mobile phone at this point and I waited for some minutes, surprised by how much calmer I felt now that I was actually there.

The doctor came back. We talked about my medical history briefly, and a bit about my work. Since I have a pretty wide Non Disclosure Agreement about my work, I am not at liberty to tell you much about that. I told him a little more – they have even more non-disclosure regulations than we have, after all.

The doctor next brought out a small ultrasound microphone thing which he put some gel on. Once the ultrasound was developed, we got our first indication that something was not wrong. He magnified a picture of the throat arteries and showed how small and smooth the plaques were. There were plaques, you see, in the expected places. But they seemed to belong to someone a little younger than me. Or in other words, they were smaller and smoother than you might expect from someone my age. Good news for a start!

Next: The dreaded exercise bike! By now I got electrodes all over my upper body again, and then sat up on the bike. We started at a workload where I just barely had to force myself to keep the correct number of rotations. While we talked, he gradually increased the load. I found it hard to continue the conversation, and I could feel my heart beating faster, but not exactly how fast. To my delight, the asthma did not trigger. Eventually he let me stop. By then I had definitely exerted myself further than I had done for 45 years, but not to the point of collapse as I had expected. Beside being tired in my legs, I was just a bit winded. I was very much alive and seemingly unhurt. I was also amazed.

The doctor was now even more elated than he had been after the ultrasound. It turns out that my max pulse is also a little over the normal, my blood pressure is within normal range, and the electric functions of the heart are all working excellently. In fact, it seems that I have the circulatory system like someone a bit younger than myself. The doctor, surely in jest, said I could run “Birken”, a tough Norwegian ski (winter) and bike (summer) marathon.

We also did a breathing test before the Aeromir wore off, and it showed normal lung function.

The doctor has no answer to what causes the tachycardia (racing heart) episodes I have written about. Since we did not trigger one this time, and not while I wore the Holter monitor, and since my heart is unusually regular, we still have no clue. What he does think, however, is that with a heart like this I will not take any damage from the occasional tachycardia. Unless they last for days, I can just wait them out. My heart has enough capacity to keep doing this for many decades yet.

He also does not see anything suspicious with my low resting pulse. It is not the result of failing electrical activity, but of a strong heart, high oxygen uptake and low blood pressure. My pulse fits right in with the rest of the measurements.

His parting words were “Now get out of here and up in the trees!” I am not going to take that literally, but  out on the road, on the other hand…

***

I came out from the doctor’s office, and summer had come to Kristiansand. It felt much hotter than it had when I went downtown, and the sun was baking from a clear blue sky. It was as if nature itself celebrated with its Viewpoint Character. While we did have some freak warm days in March, they were nothing like this. It was as warm as summer. I have no idea how long it will last, but it amused me that it seemed to have come while I was seeing the doctor.

It did not get any less hot from me half running much of the way back to work, I guess. And later in the day doing the same thing again as I looked for a new pair of jogging shoes before going home. The old ones are really old, and there’s the pair that I can only use for short stretches until they stretch to fit my feet… they are just a little too small. So I have alternated between the old pair and the walking shoes, and walking shoes just don’t cut it even while walking for an hour on asphalt and concrete. There is no way I could use them for running. I should reserve them for work. I went to G-sport first, but they did not have my size, so they asked me to try Intersport. Not only did they have an exact fit, but it was on sale, a bit over half price but still a very good buy. They are called “Mizuno” something, which sounds Japanese, but they fit my huge feet anyway.

When I came home, it did not take long before I thought of trying the shoes. But when I put on my pulse watch, my pulse was almost 20 beats above the usual. I am not sure if I am carrying an infection somewhere, or whether it is the after-effect of the exertion earlier today. It is true that my pulse usually is like this if I have gone beyond the usual in some way, done a new type of exercise or something. Also I usually get stiff and sore the next day, which would be tomorrow. I am OK with that. I shall be happy if I even have a tomorrow. I did expect to survive, but I actually did not feel sure. It was nice of my body to wait for me for 45 years! Don’t try this at home, kids. Get your asthma medication while you are young.

On the bright side, my asthma has kept me from discovering my superpowers while I was still young and might have been tempted to become some kind of athlete. That would totally have wrecked my life, I am sure. By now, I think I shall be able to contain that temptation!

That said, I burned some 500 calories today anyway. Because I could!