my broken heart (no number)
Mike writes…
Obviously travelling is hard on a person. The constant moving around, the often poor sleeping conditions and the difficulty in finding the proper nutrition can quickly wear a body down. I began feeling a bit of a sore throat the last night in Budapest, Aug 29th, and as we were deboarding the plane from Budapest, Hungary to Istanbul, Turkey, Aug 30th, i felt a little more than worn down. No tangible symptoms besides just feeling run down and the sore throat but i knew something was amiss. After checking into our room and dropping by the Fez (our tour bus company) office we ate at our hotel and went to bed. Our room did not have its own bathroom and did not have air conditioning. This was not a restful night for me. I woke up about every 1-1.5 hours to urinate and was having a lot of trouble regulating my body temperature. I knew this was a pretty reliable indication that i was getting sick. My body was clearly trying to flush out the bad. The next morning i work up exhausted and feverish but managed to make the short trek over to the Fez bus pick-up location. After the bus ride to Gallipoli, i skipped the tour and went directly to the hostel to get some much needed rest. When i woke up a few hours later, i did not really feel too much better. The next morning i felt pretty much the same. By the time we got to Selchuck, Sept 1st, and had one good night’s sleep on the excellent mattresses at Jimmy’s place, i felt like i was getting back into the swing of things. And so quickly! I continued to feel fine until the morning after our late-night lake cruise from the Tango pension on Sept 5th. We only slept about 3 hours and drank moderately. I did not feel hungover but very tired and i ate very little that day. Shortly after checking into our hotel at Fethiye, at about 1930 on Sept 6th, i began to feel some fluttering of my heart. Climbing the stairs to the terrace dining area really caused me to feel short of breath. My heart was fluttering and i felt some pressure on my lungs. I figured that after having a good night’s sleep there, i would feel fine the next morning. Not so. I continued to have an arhythmic heart beat well until the afternoon of the next day (Sept. 7) and it was making moving around exhausting. I decided i should go to a doctor.
Once we got to Kash, we got some lunch, split with what was left of our bus group, and headed to the doctor’s office. There the doctor took an EKG which showed i had premature ventricular contractions in addition to atrial fibrillation. My heart was clearly not functioning properly. The doctor gave me a prescription for Aspirin (to thin my blood) and Zok (to regulate my heart beat). She told me i would need to take these everyday. I was not at all relieved. She spoke pretty good english and recommended i visit a cardiologist in Fethiye (2 hours away) the next day (today, 08 Sept). She suggested it is possible that some kind of infection could be causing my heart to have these troubles. I took the two medications an hour or so later and very soon after my heart seemed to be back to normal. In the meantime, i was supposed to be getting lots of rest.
After working out transportation to Fethiye this morning through the owner of our pension accommodations (Ani Motel) we made the autobus ride over to the cardiologist for an ECG (echocardiogram). Unfortunately, this cardiologist did not speak very good English but he did do another EKG (which showed my heart was beating regularly) and then he performed the ECG. After this, he attempted to explain to us that my superior atrial chamber was enlarged by 2-3 mm. He claimed this was not so bad but gave me a prescription for an additional medication. He also told us he would call the general practitioner i had seen yesterday and give her his diagnosis so that she could explain it to us better. I left this appointment feeling so distraught. I’m 29 years old and i have this heart condition which will require me to take 2 drugs each evening and 1 drug each morning always with food for the next 50-60 years. Where did this come from?
So, our driver (also the owner of our hotel) drove us to lunch and then back to Kash. The whole time i was wondering what i should do. Should i leave the trip? Should i follow the doctor’s orders and take this medication forever? We got together all of my health insurance information, the prescription from the cardiologist and all of my anti-malarial prescriptions to head to the general practitioner. It turned out the cardiologist had not called her yet so she called him and he explained. Apparently he had been too busy to call her. So she explained what he had tried to tell us. He said, which she explained to us, that there was probably some virus that had affected my heart and caused it to be inflamed. It soon became clear that this was a temporary condition. She proposed i take the medications for 6 months and then have another set of tests (EKG and ECG) done. I was SO relieved. Of course it is still a pain that i will be carting around another 540 some pills and will have to be careful to take them for the next 6 months but i am SO glad this isn’t some permanent genetic-type defect. WHEEWW!!!!
So, my heart seems to be beating properly now and whatever illness i apparently had a few days back has subsided {(except for the loose bowels) sorry, but often a common ailment for travellers}. So, hopefully i can begin to enjoy Turkey in the next few days!
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Tags: Category #13 Turkey
Michele Harmon
Good luck, Mike. You’ll be back to normal in no time!
–Smith
Mike, hope you are feeling 100% soon. Beautiful pictures! Thank you for keeping us posted on your adventure!
Alicia