Arrhythmias

In my mind I was planning out my day, mindlessly performing my pre-work morning rituals. Make my lunch-check. Iron my shirt-check. Wake up on the kitchen floor. What? Did I just faint again? On the way to the hospital calmness overcame me. The doctor was finally admitting me to the cardiac triage unit and there was finality to this decision. An end was in sight to the five year struggle with misdiagnosis and symptoms that had made my life a daily struggle. Although I was afraid of the outcome, the treatment couldn't compare to the rollercoaster ride I had bought a ticket for each morning.
My arrhythmia, lovingly named Eleanor, is an expert at the game of hide and seek. She doesn't like the doctor and never showed herself on the examining table. Since my blood pressure and cholesterol were normal and the 24 hour holter monitor showed normalcy, heart disease was ruled out. After spending countless hours dealing with headaches, a racing heart beat, lightheadedness and fatigue, I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and depression .I was told these were all brought on by my messy divorce and custody battle. The health care field often attributes physical manifestations of stress in woman to the men and children in their lives. The medications for these disorders were not effective so hypoglycemia and insomnia were added to my diagnosis. I made sure I ate every few hours and took a sleeping pill every evening. To my surprise, I started to feel better until I hit the linoleum three months after my 40th birthday.
The cardiac monitor was attached and Eleanor was introduced to the medical field. The machine read 35 beats per minute. "Oh, this one must be broken", said the nurse and she brought in a replacement. It also read 35 beats per minute. An hour later it read 310. With no family history of heart disease, no damage caused to the heart muscle, no congenital conditions, no use of addictive substances, and no chronic lung disorder, I heard the first of many 'I've never seen this before's'. After four weeks of continual testing at two different hospitals more finality came in the form of a pacemaker. This stopped the chronic bradycardia and keeps my heart rate above 60 beats per minute and prevents the beat skipping that happened when I was in a deep sleep. The duel chamber lifesaver was implanted, but due to my age, it was not set at the high range. The doctors felt that medication would solve the super ventricular tachycardia and atrial fibrillation. It didn't.
Three months later I was back in that cold room strapped to the table awaiting a catheter ablation. After four hours of trying to awaken Eleanor, I was injected with adrenaline. More finality: a trigger.
She ping-ponged back and forth between my right and left ventricles at the rate of 320. 'Ive never seen this before' was declared by my surgeon as he called his colleagues in to see her in action. They were like little boys with a shiny new toy as they watched him laser my right ventricle so it would absorb the arrhythmia.
I now take my medication cocktail and vitamins every day but know that I have a long road ahead of me. I have been stable for over a year and get my pacemaker interrogated every twelve weeks. My story needs to be told so that women and doctors alike can know that just because something hasn't been seen by the medical field, doesn't mean it is nonexistent.