Naked Heartbeat

So one of the things about learning to “fully inhabit this alive naked heart” is that I seem to have a different relationship to my own heartbeat.

A few years ago when I learned that some people can feel their own heart beating, at its resting, relaxed rate, I was baffled. Sure, I could feel my heart pounding when I was exercising hard, or when I was terrified, but not while at rest. Sure, I could feel my pulse by putting a finger on my neck, and when I accidentally hammered my thumb and it swelled up, I could feel the throbbing pain. But to just feel the normal heartbeat, in the intransitive rather than the transitive sense of the verb “to feel”? It seemed impossible to me, and it kicked up my competitive “stuff.” If others could do this, and I couldn’t, what did it mean about me? Was I insufficiently sensitive? Unable to quiet my mind enough? I had worked for many years to be attuned to my body and it bothered me that this seemed so elusive.

I didn’t get obsessed with it, but as I did more sitting meditation, and more different kinds of sitting meditation, I occasionally would check in and see, can I feel it? One day during my somatics training, I heard the idea that there are different levels of subtlety to awareness, and that we can learn to sort of “dial” our awareness in to more subtle levels. As soon as I tried it – I perceive it as sort of stepping both back and in with the awareness – voila! – I sensed my heartbeat.

Fast forward to this year, the first year after my cancer treatment, when I am learning to inhabit my new shape – my “naked heart,” a chest without breasts, a body minus 20 pounds and a whole lot of estrogen, and a psyche more drastically aware of my mortality. Sometime this Spring I started to notice a weird kind of heartbeat sensation. At first I noticed it as a little fluttery feeling in my throat that made me feel like I needed to cough. I noticed it primarily while biking, after I’d been in motion about 15 minutes, which was usually at Law Park next to John Nolen Drive. Was it brought on by breathing car exhaust? Perhaps it was a respiratory thing?

As I paid more attention, I realized it was a strange, arrhythmic dance my heartbeat was doing. I would stop and take my pulse, and feel it do what seemed like a pause. Yikes! But I’d heard that lots of people have “palpitations,” especially menopausal women, so I tried not to worry too much. I had one of my every-three-months checkups with my oncologist coming up in early June, and decided to wait and tell her about it.

Dr. O’Regan did not seem very concerned about it, but said that since I’d been seen by a cardiologist as follow-up from the elevated troponin levels that I was hospitalized for last summer, I should check back with him. I became increasingly worried about the symptoms, since the more I paid attention, the more I noticed them. I realized they were happening during swimming as well as biking, and I’d become reluctant to do my solo lake swims because of them. So, I eventually called the cardiologist’s office, and was told by the scheduler that he could see me in 5 weeks. This did not seem acceptable to me, but it took me a while to impress upon them that I was having a new symptom and needed to talk to a nurse.

It took a few days, but eventually Dr. Ewer himself called me. He listened to my description and said that it didn’t sound worrisome, that it sounded like “extra beats,” with the pause I felt being a recovery period after them. He said that it was very common and not dangerous, but if I wanted to be absolutely sure, and if I thought it was happening often enough that it would be detected, he would order a holter monitor test. I requested that he do this, and rearranged my schedule to go pick up the monitor.

At this point the weird heart sensations were happening almost every time I’d been exercising for 15 minutes or more, so I was pretty confident this would work. That Friday morning I biked to the hospital to have it placed, a 10-minute ride. I did an extra loop before heading home with it on, and sure enough, it happened. Later that day I biked downtown to a meeting, but for some reason it didn’t happen! I tried doing several extra loops around the block before going in to the office, but it was an extremely hot day, so eventually I gave up. Similarly when I biked home, I kept going around & around the block 3 or 4 times after I got home, but to no avail!

Wearing this monitor brought back a lot of memories from last year. The itchy feeling of the adhesive patches that hold the electrodes against the skin. Having a potentially visible medical thing going on, and deciding whether or not to explain it to the people I’m with. The restriction on swimming.

The next morning Don and I were biking to a meditation thing that was about a 17-minute ride. We were running a bit late, so I wouldn’t have time for extra loops. Fortunately, almost like clockwork (again next to John Nolen Drive), it happened. And, as I raced a rainstorm home from the retreat center later that afternoon, it happened a 3rd time. Ta-da! I removed the electrodes 26 hours after they’d been placed, and put the monitor in it’s self-addressed envelope and got it into the mail.

I managed to mostly not worry about the results for a few days. I knew my cardiologist was out of town, and I was having a lot of fun with a visit from my niece. When I did talk to the cardiologist, he confirmed that the incidents were premature contractions as he’d expected, and said not to worry about it unless the irregular beating lasted a long time. Relieved, I went to the pool for a swim right after the call with him. As I swam, the weird rhythm happened again. I realized as I swam that before when the abnormal rhythm occurred, both biking and swimming, I had mostly been stopping the exercise, or at least slowing down, shortly after the sensation began, which caused it to stop. This time, I kept going, and so did the irregular rhythm. Hmm… he said “unless it lasts a long time…” how long is long, I thought?

When it didn’t stop after 20 more minutes of swimming, I quit and got dressed. And called him back from the bench outside the entrance to the pool. He listened patiently and reassured me again that it was not dangerous. I took notes on what he was saying, and absently waved away a bumblebee that was attempting to visit me. Though what the doctor was telling me was mostly quite reassuring, the bee kept buzzing at me, and I was getting more and more agitated, and swatting at it harder with my hand and the pad of paper. I eventually managed to end the phone conversation just as the bee stung me -- right on the tip of my nose!!!

I yelped and swatted at it some more, and it kept buzzing me! Not wanting to get stung again, I picked up my stuff and started to run, and swatted at it more with my pad of paper, and yelled at it, as it followed me! I made it to my bike and it finally seemed to be leaving me alone. I hadn’t been stung in years, and was pretty agitated about it. It hurt! It took me a while to remember how amazingly well plantain leaf works to reduce the pain and swelling of a bee sting. But I did remember, and quickly found some, chewed it, and put it on my nose. I biked home with the green sticky stuff clinging to my nose, and wondering what the heck to make of the experience.

When I got home I Googled the Native American animal cards to see what “Bumblebee medicine” symbolizes. I learned that bumblebees have the rare (in insects) ability to regulate their own body temperature (NOT something I’m great at doing post-menopausally!); that they can symbolize focus, service, cross-pollination, and, weirdly enough, more than one website said that “If you are stung, the message here is – WAKE UP! Follow the rhythm of your own heartbeat. Listen to your true self, your higher self. Heed your inner voice and wisdom.”

Wow, I thought, that is so right on it’s truly weird, and not even enlightening. I’m still in the dark about what the heck it means! How am I supposed to follow the rhythm of my palpitating heart?? Then I remembered what I learned in kindergarten – don’t swat at bees, it only agitates them. Sit still, or move away slowly. Oh, right. Maybe that’s all it means. Remember what you learned in kindergarten, and calm the ____ down!

Since then I’ve mostly managed not to worry too much about the palpitations. And, when I pay less attention to them, they don’t seem as intense. Funny how that is.