Old lady gets a flutter

The trouble with hypochondria is that your wildest fears are confirmed randomly and just frequently enough to keep your anxiety going. In animal studies, this so-called intermittent reinforcement—rewards at irregular intervals—is powerfully addictive. I’m addicted to hypochondria as a result of the fact that occasionally a condition I’ve worried about actually turns out to be real.

I fight this hypochondria, but truthfully I’d like to move into my doctor’s office so that she could monitor me continuously throughout the day. I try to be brave and soldier on against my crazy fears. But sometimes this backfires. 

A few weeks ago, I felt a peculiar flutter in the left side of my chest. My chest often flutters—anxiety, panic attacks, a sloppy tricuspid—but this time I happened to be wearing my daughter’s Apple Watch. She had bought it on a whim a year ago and then gave it to me so I could count steps. It didn’t work for counting steps, but I was still hopeful I could find some use for it, so I continued to wear it. 

I ran my ECG on the watch: “A-fib!” Then I ran my heart rate on the watch: “High heart rate!” I kept running the programs. A-fib disappeared, but high heart rate—~140 bpm—persisted, even in the morning before I’d gotten out of bed. Weirdly, I really didn’t feel bad.

But the watch readings disturbed me. Aware of my proclivity to panic, I finally—with much embarrassment—went to Urgent Care three days into checking the watch. The doctor there called an ambulance. And in the hospital, I was given an ablation. Turns out the flutter I’d been feeling was, well, a flutter, the medical term for the a-fib-like event I’d been having. The flutter was real.

Since my release back into the lay world, my friends have earnestly urged me, “Listen to your body.” No way. If I’d listened to my body, I’d still be fluttering at home—or dead. From now on, I’m watching my watch. Wish it could measure everything my body does.