Some of you might already be aware of my heart problems. For over a year now I've had periods where my heart beats irregularly, skips beats, does large powerful pulsions inbetween pulses, etc.
I've been seeing a cardiologist, but for more than one reasons, he was unable as of yet to determine what's wrong with me. One reason for this is that my heart pulls a singing frog everytime I get plugged into an ECG or listened by a doctor, so they can never hear what happens when I'm at home.
Last summer I had a holter test (a 24 hour ECG), but unfortunately during that period I didn't experience any symptoms. I was unable to get results anyway, because when I saw my cardiologist again, there was a power failure at the clinic and they weren't able to access my file (since their filing system is computerized). However, twice now I ended up at the Emergency room at Sacré-Cœur getting listened to by a doctor and once being under observation for the night... Every time this damn heart working like a charm in the presence of our wonderful health system's representatives (and no that's not irony, I sincerely admire them for their work).
I decided to take a step further by myself, that is I recorded my heart using my home sound system, edited out the background noise and boosting the Bass in the recording... I then burned the whole thing on a CD, which my cardiologist will be requested to listen to next time I see him (probably next week sometime). I'll compress and attach the files soon. In the meantime I continue to experience trouble with my heart, but I have to tolerate it for now for lack of it acting up when it needs to.
Another problem I've been having is with my mouth. You may or may not have thought at one point when being close to me that I sometimes have bad breath, and I would lie if I said it wasn't a problem I would love to fix. My teeth however are beyond easy fixing, with two of them chipped at least a quarter off, the other almost gone, all three of them blackened. Yes, it's disgusting to hear, even more to see. I haven't been able to have them removed as of yet due to financial constraints, since my job does not have a dental plan.
It became clear that I need to have something done quickly last week, when one of the chipped tooth started hurting like hell. I already had a dentist appointment a week later so I tried tolerating it (using Oragel, Advils and cold water), but on tuesday night it became unbearable, my gum swelling and the pain overcoming what little ibuprofen I was able to injest without doing an overdose. For a whole night I was unable to sleep at all, cringing with pain that just wouldn't go away.
First thing in the morning I was at the General Hospital of montreal in the emergency dental clinic, getting that tooth extracted once and for all. A week later the swelling hadn't completely gone away, and as luck would have it on tuesday night the pain came back. The new 600mg ibuprofen pills I had took did nothing to help, and I decided that I would go back to the hospital to get something - to my hospital this time, Sacre-Coeur. Since I knew there was no tooth to remove I didn't need a dentist at that time.
Too bad for me I ended up in a waiting room for the whole damn night, since there was only one doctor for about 60 patients. I was lucky enough that the pain subsided slightly (maybe the ibuprofen finally kicking in), but I didn't get much sleep, and was in bad shape when I finally saw the doctor (at 8am, when they all got in I guess). He immediately said he would give me an antibiotic injection, but when after 3 tries they were not able to give me an IV (my veins were too small because of the cold in the waiting room, and my fatigue), they finally got a microbiologist in place who gave me a prescription for oral antibiotics.
So now, with one tooth less, my heart still beating like an idiot, my swelling subsiding, I can't help thinking that I will really appreciate my vacation this summer, and I sure as hell will want to get all my teeth fixed before the end of the year. As for my heart... Well eventually either they'll find what's wrong with it, or it'll fail completely and they'll have no choice but to keep me in the hospital until they find the problem, eh?
Update: Here's a recording of my abnormal heartbeat for those interested in hearing it: link.
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