Ztigma System

Why this papercraft marks a personal health milestone for me.

March 2023 is when my health suddenly took a left turn (see Facedown Fate and Night-Glimmer posts). Out of nowhere, I began to have what I call 'low heart rate sessions', where my heart rate for any activity was running 10-15 points lower than normal. I felt like I was walking underwater, my chest felt heavy, I felt cold, and would have to breathe heavy to keep up with the activity I was doing (whether that be walking, or even sitting). Then after several hours, it would suddenly disappear. My HR would rise to normal levels, my breathing would ease, my temperature would rise. No explanation or trigger.

I went to the ER 7 times over the next two months, and with the onset of my second now-chronic symptom, what I refer to as a PVC, I checked into the hospital for evaluation. People who have PVCs describe them as heart flutters, but mine are heart 'kicks'. Like a miniaturized version of the wind being knocked out of you. It's a scary, uncomfortable heart rate hiccup, invoking a short cough, and there's a feeling of dread lasting moments after it happens.

Over the next two years, I went to gastrologists, pulmonary specialists, allergists, 3 different cardiologists, tested so many medications, had multiple CT scans, MRIs, Echos, holter monitors, stress tests, all coming back with 'you're healthy as a horse, it's just stress'. In the end, the only solution my cardiologists could offer were anti-depressants for the stress or beta-blockers for the PVCs (which, hah, lower the heart rate….hello???), which I declined both. I felt if it was stress causing these mystery symptoms, medications interfering with my productivity would just make me more stressed.

During the height of my symptoms I would experience a PVC every 20 minutes, invoked by sudden HR changes (even something like eating shaved ice, which triggers a hypothermic response through your tongue) or random stress events. Eventually, I cut out unnecessary stress in my life (like the news) and I saw my PVCs start to recede to a handful of times per day, months later.

Now, almost three years later, I'm only experiencing them a couple of times a week, if at all, after significant lifestyle changes and rigorous stress deterrents that I invoked at the start of 2025.

I sat through the Frankenstein film marveling at how bosom buddies I was with Victor's ambitions, only to realize I was experiencing my second self through the Creature. A being who was confused in his body, and clashing with his creator, desperate for answers on how to continue living as he is.

Him holding onto the dynamite stick was a taunted retribution toward Victor, but there's a moment of desperate hope in his eyes that this could be the way to unmake himself, perhaps into something Victor would realize he has to accept.