My apprehension fell far short of the horror of today. If I had known beforehand what would happen, I would have politely declined the dental surgery altogether. But I did not know. There was so little information in advance that I did not even know for sure whether today was the day of the actual surgery, or whether they were going to check things out and give me a new appointment. But things get worse from here.

I survived (so far), but I was in some doubt almost from the start. They asked whether I used any medication and whether I was allergic to anything, both of which I answered no. I did not think to mention the heart rhythm thing, which is still not clear what is, or whether it is dangerous. The doctors all seem to think not, unless it lasts for many hours or is accompanied by pain and / or breathing difficulties.

There was no chest pain of breathing difficulties today either. But a while after the local painkiller shots, just after the cutting away of my gums, my heart rhythm changed. It did not get faster, but very strong. Specifically, a bit down from the actual heart, further down from the bones of the chest, a little to the left, a spot started to beat. Putting my hand on it, I could feel the skin and whatever was under the skin actually move out and in with each heartbeat, very strongly. I am not sure whether there usually is a spot there that moves with each heartbeat; it may be there always was and I never noticed. That would be like me. My body is not very real to me until I am in danger of losing it. -_- It is still beating now, that spot, but not with the extreme strength it did then. This strength gradually faded and we resumed the surgery without further complications.

The dental surgeon stitched the opening – they had cut a fairly large hole – and gave me a prescription for painkiller and one for antibiotic. So far, so good. After waiting a little, I went to the drug store and got the drugs. I don’t expect to use the painkiller, as pain does not bother me unless it is extreme or in unexpected places. I was about to take the antibiotic when I read the sheet that lay in the package, and something seemed strange. It said that Clindamycin was used for severe infections where penicillin was ineffective, and there should be bacteriological tests and resistance analysis before using it. There were repeated warning to seek help if severe diarrhea occurred, even as far as 6 months after treatment. Now my hackles were up, and I went on the web. It turns out that this drug is the typical reason for a very dangerous intestinal infection (Chlostridium Difficile), to the point where the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control has recommended that Clindamycin be avoided in clinical practice.

So – take the antibiotic and risk a life-threatening bowel infection? Or not take it and risk wound infection and potentially blood poisoning (sepsis)? It is like sailing between Scylla and Charybdis: If you stay clear of one deadly danger, you necessarily come close to the other. Now I feel, to stay on sea a moment longer, that I should not have rocked the boat in the first place.

The pain is not a problem currently. When the local anesthetic began to wear off, a quote from the old computer game Alpha Centauri came to mind: “Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it.” (Sheng-Ji Yang.) Now, agony may be too distracting for a lesser soul such as I; but ordinary pain is welcome when there is reason for it, so as to discourage foolhardy behavior.

If only the pain preceded the foolhardy behavior at every turn! But then we would all be wise, eh?

My heartbeat is faster than usual, but not in the “racing heart” (tachycardia) category. It is like when I have an infection or has overtrained and damaged the muscles a bit. This is to be expected, since my body has sustained an actual damage and the wound is surely releasing plenty of stress chemicals. There may also be an ongoing infection below my radar. Stress hormones are probably a good thing when there is an actual physical stressor. I doubt they came into existence by an explosion. Intelligent design beats stupid design at every turn, so I doubt a mechanism common to pretty much every animal would be counter-productive. The problem with stress and humans is that we create stress where there is no reason for it, by perceiving threats to the mind as if they were threats to the body and could be fought by the same reactions.

This time however there is a legitimate threat to my body. I am not used to that. Still, the Azumio stress check clocks me in at a stress level of 21, which is probably closer to restful waters than to the valley of the shadow of death. Although the valley certainly looks closer from here than it did yesterday.

Tomorrow is the day I am scheduled for my visit to the dental surgeon. There is no information, just a postcard, so I don’t know whether they are going to explore the tooth and have me come back later, but since they have the X-ray I assume they will try to go through with the procedure: Drill a hole into my upper jaw where the root of the infected tooth is, and remove the small pus-filled chamber. This seems kind of risky, in the “bacteria and blood don’t go well together” way. I generally feel that my health is important, but not worth dying for. Hopefully it won’t come to that.

I kind of feel obliged to inform you of any extraordinary risks I know of beforehand. That said, the <a href=”https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.azumio.android.stresscheck” target=”_blank”>Azumio Stress Check app for Android</a> measures my stress level to 2%, which I suppose is about as low as you come without entering Nirvana (of Buddha fame, not of Kurt Cobain fame.)

And of course we can take comfort in the thought: “Why worry about tomorrow when you may die tonight?”

As I wrote on Google+, time for my bi-weekly trip to the emergency room!

Of course, I did not know that when I came home from work. We got off work early due to the impending Easter, which is taken quite seriously in Norway. Most people are not Christians these days, but they still take their days off  very seriously, if not the religion.  So, I was home early. I ate lightly – only a cup of yogurt – because I wanted to take a half-hour walk and big meals require energy to digest.

The route around the eastern part of the town center usually takes 30-35 minutes, depending on how fast I walk. Today my pulse started out pretty low, so while I did not run, I held a decent speed. Then when I was about halfway through, the pulse began to increase. Since I wear a pulse watch while exercising (even light exercise such as walking) I could see this before I could actually feel it.

The pulse rose more slowly this time than last time (March 19). Last time it rose more slowly than the first time (March 8). That time it rose more slowly than last fall, when I had to go back to town by ambulance. So there is a change here, it seems. I assume this is a good thing, but I don’t really know, since nobody knows what is happening to my body.

I simply walked, slowly, to the emergency room. I know quite well where it is by now.  Once there, I waited just a little while and a nurse let me in. There was only one patient before me, who had run out of some kind of medicine. I suppose that is an emergency, albeit one that could be easily avoided if you use your medicine as indicated on the package. For some reason the emergency room in Mandal does not have actual emergencies when I am there, thank the Light. I mean people coming in after falling down stairs, crashing a car or accidentally putting their hand in the electric bread cutter at the supermarket. Light send that we avoid this in the future as well.

The nurse recognized me from the first time I was there, although of course she did not remember my name and data. She put me on the EKG bench and ran the machine. This was when I learned something quite interesting. While lying there, I experienced several pretty strong palpitations, where my heart suddenly struck much harder than usual, making me nearly jump with the sudden contraction. This was exactly what I had hoped, to catch one of these in action, and here I had several of them! Except… not really. The EKG showed that my heart had beat fast but very regularly all the way through.

So, whatever I experience as palpitations is not that. When it happens, I can feel it like a small “hit” in the center of my chest or slightly to the left, and a kind of “echo” around the body. But there is no electrical discharge that corresponds to it in the EKG. Whatever it is, it is evidently not my heart. I have no idea what it is, but still, this could be very useful information. The other clues we have is that I don’t feel palpitations if I keep my breath in (but even I can’t do that for long) and that they only start when my weight is below 87 kg. Basically I did not have them when I was even marginally overweight.

The tachycardia (racing heart) was real and measurable though. The speed was slightly less than the two previous times. Perhaps this is gradually fading, or I am getting better at controlling it. It did not last as long into the evening after I went home, either. But it is a bit early to say that the next time will be even easier. We still don’t know what it is, after all.

The doctor guessed my resting pulse to 80. It is around 55. This intrigues me because from my lung volume I ought indeed to have a resting pulse of 80 or more, but I don’t. My heart is usually far too slow, but then occasionally it runs off. It’s like we used to say about our old horse at home: “Only two gears, too fast and too slow.” Well, I suppose having a workhorse of a heart is not the worst thing that can happen.

At this speed, I may just be able to squeeze in one more trip to the emergency room before I get to see my state-appointed doctor. Although at some point I guess we just have to accept these episodes and sleep them off or something. I still want a Holter monitor (portable EKG though). One acquaintance on Google+ had similar symptoms to me and nothing showed up on the EKG, but while wearing the monitor through the day her heartbeat was all over the place. I doubt that is the case for me, but it would be nice to at least rule it out. Having completely unexplainable disturbances of the heartbeat is not really a great way to encourage serious exercise. I intend to tell my doctor (the fitness nut) as much, if I eventually get to see him.