Tonight is New Years Eve, and aside from the terrible back pain that usually ails me, an old ailment has sprung up again--a sharp throbbing in my heart. If I didn't know any better, I'd assume the chest symptoms were nothing but stress from writing and studying and anxiety about the coming year and getting older and such.
Oh, but I do know better. And my best assumption is that it is linked to something from long ago--an event which I am not yet ready to write about even now. Perhaps I will soon. But on to more recent events.
When I described my symptoms to a very scientifically informed friend of mine, he told me of a new technological device called an electrocardiograph (a new device associated with galvanometry) that can detect and record electric currents made by my heart. I didn't even know my heart made electric currents! Maybe that was why I was in so much pain, I suggested, but he assured me that every heart conducts them.
How curious! I thought.
He gave me the address of a hospital "not too far from here" and told me the cardiologist there would be glad to use his electrocardiograph to diagnose my problem.
I felt both nervous and excited at once--nervous at the word "diagnose," because that always means something is wrong--but excited about being able to experience such a breakthrough in science.
I can't wait to see the electrocardiograph and come back to write about it!
As for tonight, though, Happy New Year!
On medical shows they call it an EKG. They just put a couple of sensors on the skin. The human heart puts our allot of electricity since it is always consuming chemical energy and compressing our high iron-content blood with enough pressure to inflate a bicycle tire.
ReplyDeleteFascinating!
ReplyDeleteAye pray ye comfort ter beholde 'ere in years ye shall grow olde!
ReplyDeleteA most comfortable new year to you too!
ReplyDelete