心 🫀 Hearts

I keep finding myself thinking about subtly turning a crush or partner into a cardiophile - key word being subtly. The little things that they wouldn't really notice until one day, during a hug or whatever, they find themselves absolutely dripping or rock hard after accidentally hearing or feeling my heartbeat. Embarrassed, they hope I don't notice -- of course, I do.

I push him onto the bed and sit on top of him, feeling him throb through our clothes as I gently press against him. I take his hand and bring it to my chest, firmly holding his hand against my own pounding and excited heart while I take my own hand and press it against his. Maybe there's a skip. I slowly and softly start grinding until I make a mess of myself on him. Maybe he can't hold it in anymore and flips me onto the bed, removing his pants and tearing my shorts and panties off. Thrusting deeply into me while we feel each other's hearts racing against our hands. Stumbling until we cum all over again.

She is tall, slim, and our height ratio is perfect to have my ear press against her chest during a hug. She knows this, and though it hasn't affected her much before, she currently finds herself nervous. Still, we hug each other as usual, and I can hear her heart softly beating in her chest. We stay like this, and she finds herself aware of her breathing. Embarrassed, she awkwardly holds it for a bit on and off, causing her heart to quicken, slow, quicken, slow. I bite my bottom lip cause, you know, that's kinda hot. My own heart is now pounding in my chest, and unbeknownst to me, she can feel it. Suddenly, we find ourselves squirming slightly in each other's arms. I can't resist it anymore and run my hand up her skirt, lightly rubbing her pussy lips through her underwear to feel how wet she was. Soaked. I slip my fingers under her panties, pressing my thumb against her clit while I stick my pointer finger slowly and gently in. I rub while stroking her walls, hearing her heart start racing as she quietly moaned into her hand in an attempt to stop me from hearing. I don't stop unless she stops me, or until she comes. Maybe she does the same for me.

I think fiction has done us a huge disservice when they conflate the above, but even my nursing students were kind of on the edge of not understanding this, so we're gonna talk about it here.

Heart Attack: A blockage in the coronary arteries

A heart attack, also called a myocardial infarction, is when one of the arteries that supplies the actual muscle of the heart gets blocked by a blood clot. When this happens, the muscle the artery was supplying starts to die. The more muscle impacted, or the longer the heart attack goes untreated, the worse the outcome for the patient.

Symptoms of this are different between men and women:

Treatment for a heart attack usually involves inserting a small tube into the wrist or groin, snaking it up to the blocked artery, and stenting open the blockage, thus returning blood flow to the heart muscle.

Heart Failure: A problem with the heart's ability to pump

Heart failure occurs when the heart is not beating hart enough or well enough to adequately get blood out to the body. This can occur for several reasons. It can be because of damage from a heart attack, because a valve in the heart isn't working right, from poorly functioning electrical system, or from long term exposure to untreated high blood pressure.

The symptoms of heart failure come both from blood collecting "in front" of the heart waiting to get pumped (swelling, shortness of breath, weight gain), and not enough blood getting pumped out to the body (dizziness, fatigue).

Heart failure is treated with medications that make the heart beat more normally and get rid of excess fluid to take workload off the heart. It can also be treated with surgery if the problem is with a valve, or with a pacemaker if the heart is beating too slowly.

Cardiac Arrest: A problem with the heart's electrical system

The heart beats in a synchronized way because it is made of muscle cells that are responsive to electricity. Special cells called pacemaker cells generate small electrical currents, which wash over the heart. When the cells are stimulated with that current, they contract, creating a beat.

Cardiac arrest occurs when that normally organized current becomes disorganized, and lots of cells, not just the pacemaker cells, start making their own currents. This can happen because of a lack of oxygen, too much or too little of particular electrolytes like potassium, an electrical shock, or damage to the muscle from a heart attack.

See below for a comparison between the normal electrical activity of the heart (top) and the disorganized rhythm of ventricular fibrillation:

When the electrical rhythm is disorganized, the heart isn't beating, just quivering, and no blood gets out to the body. This is treated with CPR to keep some blood flowing to vital organs, medications that can stabilize the heart's electrical system, and defibrillation. Defibrillation works by stopping the heart with an overwhelming amount of electricity and letting it restart (hopefully) in a normal rhythm.