The Heart of The Matter

Adventures with A Fib

It’s been a few months since I published anything on my motley blog. I’ve been distracted by on going health issues that bullied their way into the tranquility of the Urbancrows e-rookery.

Almost one year ago, I walked into my doctor’s surgery with a sinus infection and came out with a heart problem. It was a Friday toward the end of October, and I was definitely not a happy camper. I was sweating. My skin was an attractive shade of corpse grey, and I was breathing hard -all of which I put down to the rivers of goop coming out of my sinuses, wending their merry way to my lungs.

Cough please.

My doctor, who’s Russian, was listening to my chest to see if the sinus infection had spread to my lungs. She took a listen with the stethoscope, then listened again all the while looking more and more worried. The cold end of the stethoscope was moving rapidly across my back as I breathed in an out, accompanied by the ominous sound of anxious tutting. Bloody hell, I thought, my lungs must be bad -my head flooded with images of a murky swamp full of mucus and bacteria.  She sat up, took a long look at my pallid, sweaty face and muttered:

“Listen to me carefully. You must go to hospital right now.”

The sinus infection was obviously worse than I thought.

“Isn’t hospital a bit drastic? Can’t you just give me some antibiotics? Last time I had an infection you gave me Amoxicillin.” I said, coughing and hacking and sweating a bit more for good measure.

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