When your heart flies faster than you can catch it...
They called me the SVT girl and somehow that amuses me to no end. Technical, distant, yet affectionate.
SVT, short for Supraventricular Tachycardia.
Yes folks, it is official. I am not that hypochondriac (admit it, you thought I was!) who spontaneously goes into palpitating hyperventilation after all.
After 11 years of evading detection and treatment, I feel a profound probably inappropriate sense of relief to finally be able to put a name, a term, to my condition.
What happened?
5 hours of getting beaten up by my heart at 179 beats a minute I had had enough and took myself to the 24hr clinic to settle it once and for all. And boy, was I impressed with how fast the service was at the A&E unit (Raffles Hospital). Didn't even get a chance to pull out my worksheets to mark, and I was already strapped in and prepped for ECG/ EKG. Thumbs up for the staff at North Bridge Road!
When all physical measures to slow my heart failed, they had to resort to injecting my heart with a drug to stop it. I went flatline for 2 seconds before my heart resuscitated itself. Your chest contracts, you can't breathe, no blood flows so your whole body goes tingly, and things become green.
While on a drip later, the doctor told me SVT is compatible with most lifestyles and not uncommon. "Simply an over-active heart," he said.
For those who know me, I find that statement rather ironic.
Who knew?
I can actually pummel the world around me with the beat of my heart.
