Sort of Relieved, Hopefully More Relief on the Way

Right, not to raise alarums, but…

… for the last while, I’m not sure how long but long enough to know it’s been more than a few weeks, I’ve been rather constantly aware of my heartbeat. It’s not skipping beats. It’s not causing me pain. It’s not speeding up or anything. It’s just there, in my chest. thumping away. Okay, sometimes it feels a little tired. But mostly, it just keeps doing what it’s always (for 32 years, anyway) been doing. Except that a lot of the time, I can feel it, right them, pumping blood. Sometimes, I’d swear, I can even feel the swoosh of the blood, too.

It seemed to me, around last Friday when I became fully conscious of the fact, that this might be a rather not good thing. But of course, it was New Year’s Weekend, so I waited until today to get it checked out. Which I did, at Yonsei Severance Hospital, where I could consult with doctors in English, and where I had the full set of medicines I’m taking now critiqued by a doctor who seems, to me, quite capable. Whew.

The doctor said that I need to be watched very closely, give the history of myocardial infaractions and embolisms in my family. That said, he also had a look at my chest X-Ray (which seems normal) and my EKG, which seems mostly normal, with a little bordeline oddity, maybe… tht’s going to be clarified tomorrow, apparently; I’ll go in during the morning for a blood test — to check my cholesterol and lipid levels, so that I don’t have to fast all day long and so I can get blood test results back in the same day — and then, in the afternoon, I’ll do a 12-minute treadmill cardio-stress test. My mom said that my dad had to do one of these after he had a heart attack, so it shouldn’t be too tough for me, I guess…

I have to say that I think some of it’s just stress… having heard that the EKG and chest X-ray are normal, I already feel a little better and feel my heart a little less. But I am thinking that maybe now is not the best time to run off to galavant about the Chinese countryside, a trip that sounds a little stressful to me. I think perhaps instead, somewhere warm, with beaches and sun and places for me to sit and read and eat nice, healthy food. Though I’m starting to think I have a curse in connection to Thailand, so it may be Vietnam this time.

Meanwhile, I reread all the crits for the last draft of my story titled “The Crystal Methuselah”, and then got some work done on my redraft of the same, while sitting in the hospital waiting room. I’ve got some good ideas in the pipe for the rewrite, and I’m glad I could make such good use of my time today.

By the way, if you ever need to go to the Chinese consulate in Seoul, where you can apply for a tourist visa to China, just tell the driver to take you to the Namsan Cable Car. It’s right by there, and the Chinese Embassy/Consulate either won’t answer your phone calls or won’t be able to tell you in simple Korean how to get there — they haven’t figured out the short instructions I’m giving you here are easier to understand — so just remember: “Namsan Cable Car” is your absolute best bet.

UPDATE: Oh, hell, just see the new post. That’ll be easier.

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