It's just not fair.

My heart rate has been all over the place lately. At the gym it's the most noticeable. One day a brisk walk gets it up to 140 bpm, the next day I can't get it over 110 while running, and the following day I can't get it below 115 while sitting after my workout. Then, this past Saturday it was extremely erratic. I was standing by the door at work when all of a sudden my chest felt very tight and I got tunnel vision like I was going to black out. I reached up to feel my pulse, as I do so often these days, and nothing was there. Like nothing. For about one or two seconds. That was followed by two extremely fast, hard beats, and then it slowed down again, and then it sped back up. It was elevated the rest of the day. After my shift that night, I checked my pulse and it was 120. I wasn't even doing that much activity. I thought my beta-blocker was supposed to prevent all this?! I can only imagine what it would be like if I weren't on it...

I gave my shift away on Sunday just in case I still felt bad, and I'm really glad I did, because I felt terrible yesterday too. My heart rate was all over the place again, for no apparent reason. It was completely independent of whether I was standing, laying, or sitting. It wasn't as bad as it was on Saturday, but it was still enough to want to go to the ER. But I've been down that road before -- they do an EKG, and by that point, my HR has completely stabilized (good ol' Murphy's Law... I hate Murphy.). They give my an IV just in case I'm dehydrated and send me on my way telling me I need to call my cardio first thing in the morning. So I decided just to stay home and hope that it went away. Which it didn't. But unless I'm having a heart attack no one believes anything is wrong anyway, so why waste the money. I guess when I stroke out over dinner people will finally start to take me seriously...

Today wasn't much better. My HR was all over the place again, independent of my position, and I've had a couple of episodes where it felt like it wasn't beating at all, or like it skipped a beat. When I got home from work I called my cardio to see if I could get in this week (more like tomorrow...) and the receptionist was really weird. She said she couldn't make appointments for Dr. Q anymore, that her assistant had to do it. So I had to leave a message on her assistant's voicemail, and of course she didn't call me back. So I guess I'm not going to get an appointment any time soon. I guess I'll just wait it out. Hopefully it either gets better, which means I won't need to see anyone anyway, or it gets worse, which means I can go to the ER without them laughing in my face.

Another new thing has started lately too. If I have my head tilted even a little bit I get so dizzy I feel like I'm going to fall over. Almost like vertigo. I don't know if this is related to POTS or what. I'm actually not even sure if I have POTS. I have been told so many different things by so many people I don't know what to think, and that is extremely frustrating. Do I have POTS? Do I have migraines? Is this all an inner ear issue? Are there inner ear issues involved? Someone figure me out!! I would really like to have an MRI done with contrast and an ECHO of my heart done. If both of those things came back normal (as Murphy dictates they would) I would feel a lot better having ruled out more options.

I have been having a really hard time lately. I have been more upset about the cards I've been dealt, mainly because I feel like I'm going backward, diagnosis-wise. I feel like hell, and everyone keeps telling me how I'm just being a hypochondriac, or how I need to just not think about it and it will go away. I feel even worse now than before, and I'm just so tired of it... Did my health really peak at 22 years old? Am I just aging, like that neuroophthalmologist said? This can't be right. It's just not fair.

Well my heart feels like it's going to explode, so I'm going to end here for now. I will post updates about my health, as always.