Turning 40 with a blip

Alfred Biddlecomb
Published: July 23, 2008

It was not a pretty scene last week as I laid down on an emergency room bed two days shy of my 40th birthday. My hopes for a smooth transition into my 40s were dashed when my heart began pounding and I nearly passed out at my desk. Though I’m reasonably healthy, I immediately thought it was the “Big One” as Fred Sanford used to proclaim with hand on chest.

The only thing scarier to me than a heart attack is the fear of one. And the fear had a tight grip on me last Monday morning. Being a rational man, I rolled my chair back from my desk, propped up my feet
and began to breath slowly in order to assess the situation.

Let’s see, my heart was beating a mile a minute. This hadn’t happened since my wedding day (when I saw the bill from the caterer). On the bright side, I had no chest pains and breathing was not a
problem.

The episode went away as quickly as it appeared. Then it hit me again while walking into my co-worker’s office. “I’ve got to get out of here,” I told my co-worker, who assumed I had a bout with the flu.

Acting in a sound, rational manner, I drove out of the Washington Navy Yard and back toward Virginia in order to visit the ER near my home. I don’t recommend this, yet in my demented view of the world
that morning, I didn’t want friends and family to have to travel to Southeast DC if I were suddenly hospitalized.

Meanwhile I’m driving over the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge thinking how nice it was that the new span includes a “breakdown lane.” That way if I keel over, I can pull off to the side and not block traffic.
The drive went smooth with my only worries being whether I was supposed to go into the light or stay away from it. Having seen the film “Poltergeist” I’m still confused.

The ER that I walked into was quite familiar since I’ve taken my kids there on a few occasions. That was another thing that scared me. My mom, a veteran emergency room nurse, has seen many people
walk into an emergency room, only to die of a heart attack minutes later. The “fear” still had its grip on me.

It’s not fun watching your heart beat on a digital monitor with a dozen EKG taps stuck to your bare chest and ankles. It is here that you begin making promises with each blip of your heart on the monitor.

Blip! No more fast food. Blip! I’ll work out more often. Blip! I won’t miss church. Blip! I’ll stop drinking cold beer on the weekends. Blip Blip Blip Blip!… Well, maybe I’ll just reduce it to Sunday football
games. Blip!

I now know the power of such a device. Just looking at one forces you to contemplate being a better person.

After an hour or so, the curtain opened and the doctor appeared with all the fanfare of Johnny Carson being introduced on the Tonight Show. Then came the questions.

Do you smoke? No.

Have you had chest pains before? No.

Do you drink coffee? Yes.

How much? Do you mean each day or before I get to work?

I told the doctor that I’ve drank 6-8 cups of coffee a day since I was 18-years-old serving in the Navy. And I don’t mean that pansy stuff at Starbucks. I’m talking about coffee so rich, you have to slice
yourself a cup.

Then I admitted that I only get around four or five hours of sleep a night. It’s just the way I’ve operated since I was younger.

“Well, you’re not ‘younger’ any more, Mr. Biddlecomb,” the doctor said looking at my chart, exposing my milestone birthday. “Maybe you can get away with that when you’re 20, but not when you’re
fort. . . eh. . . over 20. If you know what I mean.”

The final diagnosis was heart palpitations induced by heavy caffeine use, lack of sleep and stress (brought on by trying to sell a 20-year-old town house in today’s real estate market). Other than that, my

EKG was fine, my blood pressure was normal and my blood work checked out OK.

Never have I seen such a clear line of demarcation into middle age than with what I experienced in those few nervous hours on Monday. So two days later on my 40th birthday, I paid a visit to my doctor.
Now I have appointments for an Echocardiogram and a Stress Test.

Preventative medicine is something I would have laughed at 20 years ago.Then again, in those days I didn’t have a wife and two kids. Fear of a heart attack and the “blip” of an EKG monitor can be strong
motivators.

Alfred Biddlecomb is the former opinion editor of the Potomac News and the Manassas Journal Messenger.