I'm just looking for attention really

I have heart palpitations sometimes.  it's happened occasionally for the past several years or so.  I noticed it would happen more frequently when I was going to bed after a night of too much booze and too many cigarettes, or it would happen the next morning when I woke up hungover with my lungs tasting like tobacco each time I exhaled.   when it happens it makes me tense up and cough, sort of, just once.  and when it happens once it normally happens a couple more times in the next twenty minutes.  but normally after a few of those it's done and it doesn't happen again for quite some time.

a few weeks ago it started happening a little more than "normal," I guess I'll say.  so I gave up smoking.  (finally my new years' resolution came true!!!  I'll admit it was easier to stay resolute when I thought the next cig might make my heart pop.)  but my ticker is still acting up, and I'm a little worried.  maybe more than a little, to be honest.

on Saturday I think it was, I told Gina I was having a bad heart day.  I had some palpitations, some worse than normal and they went on for over twenty minutes, more like thirty or forty.  and my heart felt like it was beating hard, like every pump was more forceful than usual.  I was worried, so I decided to call the carpenters union trust fund (they pay for the health benefits that are supposed to kick in for me on May 1st) when they were open on monday.  I asked if I could see a doctor this month and they could pay the bill once I'm covered.  the man on the phone, quite the blathering idiot, eventually rudely explained, "Sir?  Sir.  Sir if you see a doctor before May 1st you will not be covered." 

"Thanks."  click.  well, more of a flop / clap sound of me closing my cell phone, but you get what I'm saying here.  anywayyysss...  that was yesterday.  today I was sitting in the apprenticeship training class getting certified for CPR and first aid allll damnnn dayyyy.  my heart was doing the beating-harder-than-normal thing the entire time. at one point they were showing and explaining how to use the automated external defibrillator and I was wondering if I should volunteer to have them put the thing on me so the class could see the thing in action.  

so when I got home I decided to look up short-term health insurance.  I even talked to Scot's dad, an insurance broker, to get some advice.  he said to look up blue cross or blue shield.  I ended up finding some decent policies on some online site that compares rates.  but I read the fine print and what do ya know?!  coverage won't start until May 1st anyway!  sick.

I'm in my room on my bed worrying about my corazon, feeling lightheaded and slightly dizzy.  I don't know what that's all about.  I'm just hoping I'll be fine and dandy until the first AND that my paperwork goes through on time so that I can see a doctor or a cardiologist that friday afternoon.

if I had to guess, I'd say the doctors will come up with mitral regurgitation.  a backflow of blood into my left atrium could account for the weird sudden pressure change in my chest that makes me tense up and for the feeling of a sudden change in pressure in what I assume has to be my aorta and the arteries branching off.  also the handful of times I've woken up at night gasping for breath might also be explained by a bad mitral valve in my heart.  it's something called paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnoea (I'll admit I had to look up the spelling on that one), where someone will wake up gasping for air.  the cause is a buildup of fluid (blood) in the lungs - actually not IN the lungs, but in all the blood vessels in the lungs - because of insufficient blood flow away from the lungs, back to the heart, and through its left chambers.

I'm somewhat of a hypochondriac, and I know it.  I learned a lot of this stuff from wikipedia, so what do I know?  I'm not a doctor yet.