Listening for Life

Part I: Reassurance

I certainly had heard the term “thready pulse” before. I watch hospital dramas. But I don't think I ever really knew what it meant until I had one. 

I was literally standing around doing nothing when, all of a sudden, my heart started racing. But unlike what you expect when your heart was racing, it wasn't pounding. It was fluttering and it was fast.

And it felt very scary and fairly dangerous. Hearts keep you alive and this one didn't seem to be working properly to keep me alive, let alone my baby… because I was pregnant. 

I immediately called my doctor's office and got the resident on call and she heard what was happening and asked me a few questions and I told her my pulse was, I think, 172. She put me on hold for a good long time and when she came back she said, Mrs. Zikmund-Fisher, are you sure you know how to take your pulse? I told her I did and she said I'd better come to the ER. 

My husband picked me up and we took off for the ER and we got there and they immediately put me on a monitor and I saw that 175 pop up on the screen right before it went back to normal. They ran a bunch of tests. They said, we believe you, we saw it. And eventually they, after checking a bunch of different things, they sent me home. 

That night in the middle of the night, I woke up with terrible, terrible stomach pain. And I took myself to the bathroom and I was weak and dizzy. And I was sitting there in the dark on the toilet and I felt like I was going to pass out. But more importantly, I felt like I was going to die. 

I used all the energy that I had left in my system to moan loudly. And thankfully, my husband heard me and came in and sat with me. And eventually, after longer than it should have been, I had the most unbelievable diarrhea I've ever had in my life. Followed every half hour by another bout, till by morning, everything that was coming out of me was clear. 

I had emailed my family doctor the night before when I came home from the hospital, and he had already emailed back and said he wanted to see me and that his office would call. And when they did, I said I really needed to get in fast. So, they told me to come in and I saw my doctor who had been my doctor for a very long time. And he checked me out and talked about what was happening and did a lot of hmmm. And he looked at my test results from the night before and wondered if I might be having a thyroid storm, but we needed to redo a bunch of the tests. 

I was so weak and dehydrated. I was drinking juice out of a sippy cup because I could barely hold it up and I was afraid it would spill. And he said, I think you're okay, but we're just gonna have to see. 

Naomi Zikmund-Fisher, LMSW

So that wasn't a very satisfying answer. And right at the end of the visit, he said what he always said at the end of my visits, which was, is there anything else I can do for you? And I said, yeah, can we listen to the baby? He said, didn't they have you listen to the baby at the hospital last night? And I said, no. I really couldn't imagine that after everything that had happened, everything was okay. I was really scared. I was pretty sure I was going to live at this point, but it didn't seem like my body was supporting a second life. 

So the doctor got out the DopTone and put it on my belly and immediately you could hear the fetus's heartbeat. 

And I started to tear up.

And he looked at me and he said, do you feel better? 

And then I started crying in earnest and I said yes. 

And he started to tear up. 

And he said, me too.

Part II: Resilience

It was a few months later, I woke up early in the morning with what I now knew was a bout of SVT, supraventricular tachycardia. I waited because they had told me this is benign, but I eventually woke up my husband, told him what was happening. The thing about SVT is it may be benign, but it is incredibly draining and it really does not feel like your heart is doing anything to help you out.

So I did all the maneuvers that they tell you to do. They all involve some form of what they delicately call bearing down, which you may know better as pretending to poop. Nothing worked. It just kept going. So we got in the car and headed for the ER. It's about six in the morning. 

What I remember is that the sound of the monitor that they put me on was absolutely deafening. From those same medical dramas, I know what a heart monitor is supposed to sound like. You've heard it. It goes boop boop, boop boop, boop boop. Except mine wasn't. It was going dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee. And this time the numbers on the screen were over 200. 

So the doctors start trying to get me to do vagal maneuvers, bearing down. And I tried again, but it didn't convert my heartbeat. And finally, one of the doctors came over to me and said, “Okay, I think what we're going to need to do here is convert it chemically. We're going to put medication into your IV. It's very safe for the baby. It will pass through your system very quickly. It goes in quickly. It works quickly. And it goes out quickly. And so whatever happens will last less than a minute. 

Now some people say it feels like stepping into a hole, but it lasts less than a minute. 

And some people say it's like something heavy being dropped on your chest, but it lasts less than a minute. 

The main thing you need to know is that whatever happens, it will last less than a minute. 

Are you ready?” 

I said I was ready as I was going to be. 

They put the medication into my IV and immediately two things happened: One was that a sumo wrestler sat down hard on my chest… and the other was that the room went absolutely silent.

I couldn't quite wrap my head around what was happening. It was uncomfortable and something was wrong and I just couldn't quite figure out what it was. And somewhere from deep under that sumo wrestler, some part of me sent up a message. It was one word, “flatline.” And I realized that the room had gone silent because my heart had stopped beating and the monitor had stopped making noise.

Just as I was trying to wrap my head around that and what that meant, and that was kind of bad, that same part sent up another message, a gift. It said, “less than a minute.”

Almost as soon as it had sent up that message, I heard, doot-doot, doot-doot, doot-doot, and the sumo wrestler got up. And I thanked that part. And it said, you did it. You're strong. You made it. Thank God.