Pumkins!! & Don't Panic!!!

From left to right:
Dan's pumpkin (he'll finish soon), mine, Jake's, Derek's and a gold one Dan painted Saturday.

Me taking a picture for my family to show them what my 30 day heart monitor looks like.

Don't panic!  In my family it is fairly normal, for all of the girls at least, to have some arrhythmia -- our hearts beating a bit out of rhythm occasionally, especially when we're tired or stressed.  We all know to put our head down low, or sit down, or lie down and breathe regularly and all will be well.  Every now and then I have had a slightly worse episode and have freaked people out by not being able to get enough air to talk in full sentences, or by having my heart freak out enough that I gasp when it goes back to normal, or occasionally I feel myself going dark and think I'm going to pass out just to have my heart start working fine again in the nick of time.  It always has gone back to normal though -- and fairly quickly!

I mainly have the heart monitor because I have met my deductible this year and it seemed a good time to see if I could learn anything useful about my heart.  It seems likely that I just need to not let myself get too tired or stressed out :-).  The extra weird episodes happen so infrequently that it is unlikely I'll have one even in the 30 days I wear this thing.  So when you hear I have a heart monitor there really is no reason to panic about my health.  It is the same as always :-)  -- and by that I mean excellent of course! (I told my NP that I always thought of myself as a healthy person and she said I am a healthy person, I'm just getting older.)