![]() The adrenaline lasted longer than the storm. I ran through the darkness to get inside, then hid my panic by burying my face in a friend’s shoulder. During one thunderstorm, a gust sent my car skidding across the parking lot of my sailing club. As a child, I wasn’t especially afraid of storms, not even the tornado that once ripped through my home town. One of the things that unsettled my heart, in those anxious years, was the weather, something else that I could not control. Twenty minutes later, the palpitations dissipated as though they had never been there. I tried to explain what I was feeling to my mom and pointed at the veins in my throat, where my pulse was pounding with uncomfortable force. Far from land, getting to the hospital was not an option. Once, while sailing on my family’s boat around Lake Erie, I felt the second, more disruptive kind of palpitation. Having no explanation for my condition meant having no hope for a cure. I hated that I was alone with the irregular ticking of my heart. I was instructed to rush back to the hospital if it happened again. A cardiologist studied my electrocardiogram but said that it wasn’t clear enough for a conclusive diagnosis. The drug slammed into me: my heart juddered, then resumed its habitual rhythm. My partner drove me to the hospital, where I was immediately admitted and given a dose of adenosine. It was nothing like the heavy thud of my pulse after exercise it felt wrong, even as it remained invisible to others. Late that spring, I felt a new sensation in my chest-a rapid and forceful booming that left me light-headed and struggling to breathe. He told me to read a book called “ Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death.” Instead, I made an appointment with a university therapist. I was frightened of my heart but still thought of myself as healthy I wasn’t ready to see an expert who might confirm that I had a heart condition. I was left questioning whether the problem was in my chest or my mind.Īs I finished my first year of college and turned nineteen, palpitations and panic attacks haunted me. By the time doctors examined me, however, my heart had returned to its regular rhythm, and they interpreted my symptoms as a panic attack. This time, my chaotic heartbeat terrified me, and I begged my brother to drive me to the hospital. The palpitations came back when I returned to Ohio. He told me to visit a cardiologist as soon as I got home. I was more curious than concerned, but, when I mentioned them to the doctor, he looked grave. Near a sign that warned of unexpected eruptions, I felt a string of erratic beats flutter in my chest. I was visiting Costa Rica with a college class and a local doctor. I first learned to fear my heart on the slopes of an active volcano.
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