That is interesting, @asvjerry , and similar to this:
going back to around when the tale I recounted started, a friend of mine who I had worked with from ’85 through ’87 called me to touch base, and to make a long story short, he had just got a stent put in the, from his description, I believe may have been the left anterior descending coronary artery. Unlike me, he eats good food and exercises, but he also drinks and smokes pot and there is a family history of coronary artery disease. Anyway, he said he had been feeling like something wasn’t right when he was riding his bike and his doc set him up with a stress test and they told him he had a major blockage going on and needed a stent asap. So he got it and he said he felt great afterwards.
I frequently feel as if "something is not quite right" but I also know how a little knowledge can create a psycho somatic experience. However, I got to thinking that my own sedentary lifestyle and eating habits may have caught up with me also, so therefore, during one of these spells where the left side of my chest was "feeling a little funny," I got the VA to do the cardiac stress test. Which they said I passed with flying colors. Which is not a true indicator of everything going on in there, but it did make me feel better at the time.
Then a couple of years later was when I started palpating and listening and hearing a skipped beat, and the more I listened and felt my pulse, the more frequent it seemed, and I also thought I was feeling mild palpations. Which is about the time my neighbors 50 some year old wife, who appeared to be in great shape (but she did smoke cigarettes and I think there may have been a family history), went into cardiac arrest and died. It was then I decided maybe I needed to have another check done which prompted the call to the VA where they put me on with a triage nurse who played 20 questions with me and decided to error on the side of better safe than sorry and hence, I went to the local ED.
This was the doc that told me to quit checking my pulse. And for the most part I have quit checking my pulse, and when I do, I haven’t picked up the skipped beat. So I am willing to concede that the mind is a funny but powerful thing that can have funny but powerful effects. And as I also typed previously, I think having a tiny bit of knowledge on my part is not necessarily a good thing.
Oh well . . . ramble on. . . .
