It starts with a flutter: butterflies in my chest. Not sweet, delicate butterflies but twitchy, back-alley ones, like monarchs on meth.
If you’ve ever danced hard, hiked fast, or run far, you know the ribcage-rattling thuds I mean; they’re life-affirming when you’re deliberately exerting yourself. But they happen to me when I’m eating breakfast. Or driving my car. Or trying to fall asleep at night.
For more than 20 years, I’ve had an arrhythmia that sets my heart racing at up to 210 beats per minute for no apparent reason, at inopportune moments. On a good day, it leaves me breathless and lightheaded. On a bad, it sends me scurrying to the ER for relief.