Timelord Cardiophile

I have had a pacemaker since I was 16 years old. It's strange when it has to interrupt an irregular rhythm and pace my heart. If I am in the middle of a conversation when that happens, I completely freeze and focus on my heartbeat until I can catch my breath again. Its distracting for others if they dont understand, which usually results in a brief explanation followed by a million questions.

Sometimes it takes a couple shots to get it back and usually PVCs follow for several minutes. My heartbeat can be seen vibrating through my shirt it is pounding so hard.

After an episode, people sometimes comment on my very visible neck pulse which is always awkward, especially if im with other people. On one occasion, a complete stranger made a comment about my visible pulse and immediately my friends started taking my pulse or putting their hands on my chest to feel my heartbeat. Which would be a cardiophile dream if it wasn't so embarrassing lol

Today I taught myself about reading EKG’s and where they actually line up with things going on in the heart with regards to MIs. Basically you have 3 coronary arteries that get occluded in most MIs: Left Anterior Descending (LAD), Left CircumfleX (LCX), and Right Coronary Artery (RCA). LAD feeds the anterior heart and the septum. LCX feeds the lateral and some posterior heart. RCA feeds the right ventricle and some posterior heart, as wells as the SA node in 60% of people.

Now EKGs are confusing and complicated, but it gets easier if you remember where they measure relative to the anatomy. This little diagram helps me get started:

I’ve overlaid the heart over this in the diagram up top. Now remember, those arrows are vectors which is reflected in an EKG read by the upstrokes and downstrokes of the read. (I’m oversimplifying things, but physics makes my brain hurt, and this has worked for me so far.) Practically, what it means is that if the arrow is pointing towards the damage you get ST elevations. For example, in an inferior infarct, you get ST elevations in II, III and aVF, which point towards the inferior part of the heart.

You also have leads V1-V6 which are arranged like so:

(Image from wikipedia)

Notice their vectors point anteriorly. So an anterior infarct shows up at ST elevations in some or all of V1-V6. Meanwhile a posterior infarct will show up as ST depression in V1-V3 which point away from the posterior part of the heart.

To take it one step further you can figure out which artery is blocked. But that’s just a matter of knowing the blood supply, which is basically just what’s nearby. When I’m trying to figure it out on a test, sometimes I draw out this 5 second diagram (aka artistic masterpiece):

For any cardiophile who hasn’t seen it, seriously, don’t let the Tumblr hype put you off. The show has lots of good things going for it, but I have never watched a show that (inadvertently) caters for my kink quite like this one does.

putting my heart through it today. ive had quite a lot of caffeine, just took a few hits of my pen and its really showing itself

Pressure☆☆