Slice of Chaotic Life

Last summer before my first tachycardia  (racing heart) episode, I would often take trips of an hour and a half, sometimes even longer. I dared not jog more than a few steps at that time, but on May 2 this year I had my heart checked out and was told it was in super shape, so I have sped up a bit. Still, I have never gone quite that far away from home, because of the risk that I would be stranded there with a tachycardia. Today that happened, or rather began to happen.

I was about 30 minutes away from home at my usual speed when I decided to jog a bit further than usual. My pulse had remained low enough that I had to jog fairly frequently to stay in the fat-burning zone. So I decided to give it a bit more. This time however the pulse did not fall back to the lower level afterwards, and after some more walking it started climbing the way I have seen in this year’s tachycardia attacks. They have luckily grown milder and shorter over time, so I did not feel like panicking quite yet. The doctors say that I can live with these for several hours before I need to seek attention.

Still, I stopped on the road near a farm where a small group of people were sitting by a table a ways from the road, enjoying the sunny but not sweltering weather. I thought about asking them for some water and perhaps to rest in the shade for a little while until my pulse straightened itself out. In the end, I decided against it, and walked to the nearest natural shade where I waited a few minutes. By that time, the pulse already began to get back in normal range. I did not jog anymore this trip, but by the time I was home, my pulse was pretty much normal. So that worked quite well. Also, burned another 850 calories. ^_^