Multi-Tasker at Heart

So how did I end up with my bra in my purse while having drinks with a married man? (There, that should be a good first-sentence grabber.)

It all started with my heart all a flutter. Well, didn't feel like a flutter in my heart, more like a belch. It would travel up my chest and throat and then my tongue would feel weird, kind of a numb tingle. Then I started getting got dizzy from it, too. Only once did I think I might even pass out.

So Doc recommended me to a cardiologist. Talked with the cardiologist's nurse first. First question was, what do I do for a living. I told her of my varieties of work. Am I currently taking any medication? Yes, adderall. "Suddenly the three jobs makes sense." She knew all about ADD (it's in her family, too). Looking down at her chart she went on automatic pilot through the list of questions and asked,"How long have you had ADD?"

She looked up and we both giggled. "33 years, right? Let's do it this way, when were you diagnosed?" I don't know how we got to laughing and having a good conversation when just talking about family medical history, but we did.

The theory Cardiologist has is that I am getting two heart beats happening at the same time. We have a natural pace-maker and mine is occasionally saying,"yikes, we need to have another beat!" when I really don't, and thus get two happening at once, or one big beat, that feels like a burp coming from my heart. Great, even my heart is ADD and likes to do two things at once.

It's actually nothing to worry about, but this is still a theory. So I wore a holter monitor for 24 hours.

When the nurse was about to hook up the electrodes to my chest, she asked if I was wearing an underwire bra. Yes. I would have to take it off, the metal could possibly screw up the reading. "It could be worse," she said. "Last week I had to tell a woman that was about to get on a treadmill to take hers off."

I wasn't going on any treadmill, but I wasn't going home, either. I would be in public, I had plans with a friend. Part of it walking up and down those Seattle hills... and let's just say there is certain times of month when a woman needs her bra!

There was something very familiar about being hooked up to this thing. Then I realized, it's the same size and shape as the body mics my actors use. And I wore mine in the same place I've known a few actresses to have worn theirs - right in the cleavage. I basically had a pouch necklace. It's suppose to hang down and rest on your chest, but due to my shape, it hid right in there.

I walked out of the clinic, pressing a hardback copy of Freakonomics to my chest and headed off to my friend's house. My petite, svelte friend whose only article of clothing I can borrow is shoes. When I arrived she had a string bikini waiting for me. It was black and so was my holster. Two black triangles and a black square in between with wires coming out of it - I looked like a strange science experiment.

There is a button on the monitor that I was suppose to push if I felt the belch. I really didn't feel it much, but a couple of times I felt more of a slight 'hiccup' when walking down the street. So I had to poke around my chest, over my clothes, to find the button to push, then write down what time it was, what symptom I had, and what activity I was doing.

The next day I managed to find a bra thing that would work. I carried a regular one in the purse so I could change right there at the clinic as soon as I returned the monitor. I was able to take it off myself but kept the circular sticky things that have the electrodes on (that adhesive works really well). One white circle was slightly visible from my shirt's neckline. Stuck the old bra in my purse.

Then I was to meet a friend for dinner. His wife couldn't make it, so it was just he and I. Somehow telling the story of my holter monitor we came around to laughing about how things can be spun so they sound more interesting then they really are without twisting any of the facts. Looking at our facts: We were both drinking alcohol. He is married. There was a bra in my purse. And that is my story.