My "exciting" Weekend

Good day people.

As i mentioned in another post, I've spent most of the weekend in hospital and hooked up to an ECG machine. So i thought i'd let you know that i'm fine and what happened.

A bit about me first, I just turned 28 on Friday, I'm normally healthy and fit. I do have asthma. Smoke occasionally. Don't drink alcohol. I suffer from depression, anxiety and migraines for which i'm on medication.

So Saturday morning. 6am. Got ready to go out on my normal cycle, get home in time to sit and watch the football i thought. Got dressed, checked the bike over, then found a slightly weird thing when i hooked up my heart rate monitor. It was abnormally high. My resting heart rate is around 52-58, But i was away up at 93bpm. So i thought, ok, something strange. I reset it, but still away up. Thinking nothing of it being that high, I set out for my 60 odd miles knowing that I'm going to hit well above that level of bpm at times in my route.

Around 15 miles in, the steep stuff happens. THE LECHT. Climbing that, my heart rate rockets anyway. Highest I'd ever seen was 204 and that was in the middle of winter climbing another hill. So back to the cycling. I was watching my heart rate because of it being higher than normal before I started out. Was getting to a steeper section, was quite breathless and feeling a bit dizzy, thought I was going to fall off the bike. I took a look at my monitor.....BOOM my BPM was sitting at 221. What the hell was going on? I thought I'd better jump off and have a sit down. Found a passing place and had a seat. Sitting there for 25 minutes. My rate had only dropped to 194. Something was seriously wrong.

What to do? I was in the middle of no where. I had mobile phone signal. Should I call an ambulance out? I thought it was not a wise idea to try and cycle home. Just when I was getting to the stage of calling 999, a G-Doc's medic car appeared on the rise of the hill......FATE?? I managed to flag it down. Explained the situation and he phoned straight away for an ambulance because he thought it was quite serious.

Now the medical bit. Which i don't know all the facts. I got an injection of Betaloc from the medic and was told to keep my heart monitor on as it saved me getting undressed and fitted with another one as it would be a while before the ambulance arrived and I was frozen. It had snowed overnight up the Lecht and the temperature was only 3 degrees. So the injection brought my rate down to 166. Still WAY above what my normal resting heart rate is, even after massive amount of exercise. It normally settles down quite quickly.

Ambulance arrived around 20 minutes later. Switched to thier monitors. I was more concerned about my bike. What was I going to do with it? Thankfully the medic took the wheels off and popped it in his back seat and took it home for me. Which was fantastic of him.

Sitting in the back of the ambulance. My rate hadn't gone below 137. What was going on? Blues and Twos all the way (45 miles) to the hospital. Straight into A&E, put on an ECG, had a drip attached and my heart rate started to drop. So most of Saturday I spend lying wondering what the hell was going wrong with my body?

Off I travelled in my chauffeur driven wheelchair to have an MRI scan to see that my heart was working as it should, everything was fine......Doctors were puzzled. I was going to be kept on a monitor over night and see how I was the next day. Time to get some kip. Restless night, but in the morning my heart rate was sitting at a steady 61. Doctors were even more puzzled. The took blood a few times over the course of the weekend and nothing was showing up.

They have put it down to a panic attack. I'm going to be seeing my doctor ever second day for two weeks to get everything checked out. But nothing serious they say. No need for any medication to be taken. It was just a "one off" and "these things happen". I've heard that about a dozen times over the last days.

Not sure i'm happy with their stance on it being a panic attack as it was at an elevated level before i set out and why was i having a panic attack on one of my favourite routes that i've cycled hundreds of times and even with it being a "killer" on the legs, I still enjoy it. So I'll wait to see my own doctor and see whats said.

All in all. A shock to the system and quite a scare. But I'm fine, no lasting damage done and everything should be fine. I've been advised over the next two weeks while going back and forth to the doctor to take it easy and no strenuous exercise. So the cleats are hung up for a bit and my main source of exercise shall be reaching for the TV remote and watching some of my riders winning stages in the Giro and ToC.

Peace out and take it easy

Kam