Heart Rate

Tom was at High Adventure camp with the teachers July 6-9; a Wednesday-Saturday. While there he managed the most challenging ropes course he has ever done with ease, scaled a 50 ft rock wall, repelled it and rafted some rapids on the Severe River. He came home, unpacked and took me out on a date. As we climbed into bed on Saturday night, he said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you. I woke up very dizzy this morning." The next morning he could hardly get out of bed because he was so light headed and generally not feeling well. He managed to make it to his 9:00 meeting, but came home and went to bed for the rest of the day. The next morning, he succeeded to get ready for work (barely) but then asked me to take him to the Insta-Care before going to work. He thought maybe an ear infection was causing him to feel unbalanced.

At the Insta-Care, his blood pressure was 90/60 and his heart rate was 45. Ear infections and the like were easily ruled out and they started looking at other things. An EKG was done along with a blood pressure/heart rate test. (At one point his heart rate was 35.) The doctor didn't know how to treat it and told us we needed to get to the Emergency room via ambulance. OH! Tom refused to ride in (or pay for an ambulance) so I buckled him in the 1993 Toyota pick up (because we didn't have a new van yet) and headed for the hospital even though Tom really wanted me to take him home. (At this point, he texted his boss saying he was going to be a little late for work.)

At AF~ER, they got us in before the other patients and hooked him up to the monitors and quickly ushered in Dr. Young (Steve Young's little brother---Tom immediately felt in good hands.) After going the rounds with all the questions, the doctor was baffled, but thought a pacemaker might be needed, but he was going to do some research, call the cardiologist on call and watch the monitors. TWO hours later, he came in and said that he had had to consult a cardiologist at UVRMC and he needed to get there via ambulance ASAP. Once again, Tom refused to be transported in that expensive fashion and deflected the doctor by asking him if he played for BYU in '87. Dr. Young said he did, but didn't play much. Tom said, "You played some, I remember." He didn't ride in the ambulance.

Instead, I again transported him in the aforementioned vehicle through heavy traffic and construction (perhaps I should mentioned that I don't love driving Tom's truck and I hate stick shifts) all the while very nervous as to what I should do if something were to happen that I suddenly needed a paramedic nearby. . . (Now I'm thankful we saved our thousand dollars, but at the time I wasn't so sure.)

We arrived and got him settled in a room and waited and waited and waited. By this time it was past two and I convinced him to let his boss know he wouldn't be coming into work that day. He reluctantly made the contact. Finally a nurse came in and told us the tests the cardiologist had ordered and that he would be there over night and at the minimum, most of the next day.

In the next 24 hours, Tom had an echo cardiogram (ultra sound), a thallium stress test, blood work and another EKG. They also monitored his heart rate. During the night he got down to 35, but the rest of the time he ran between 45-50. However, after all of the results were read by the doctor we got a clean bill of health saying his heart was very healthy and it must have been a virus causing his heart to act like it needed a pacemaker. While it was good news and we were very thankful a pacemaker wasn't needed, it sure is a lousy way to spend $10,000.

Six weeks later, his heart rate is still low, but we are going other routes to get to the bottom of it. We have some avenues we are exploring so when we have things figured out, perhaps I'll get it recorded. (My track record lately has not been good!)