She said the problem appeared to be something called an atrioventricular nodal reëntrant tachycardia. doctor in attendance, who quickly instructed the medical team to place intravenous catheters in my arms, take blood for testing, strap oxygen prongs over my nostrils, and perform an electrocardiogram. But, despite the early hour, there was a senior E.R. The first days of July are said to be a perilous time to be in the hospital, because that’s when new residents begin their training. As I lay in the ambulance, the siren blaring above me, I prayed that I would not die before making it to the emergency room. I woke my wife, who took my pulse and called an ambulance. But the symptoms were getting worse, and I broke out in a sweat. I tried to be calm, telling myself no, it wasn’t a heart attack, merely the exhaustion of the trip and the effect of the coffee. My chest tightened and my breathing became labored. I counted beats on my watch: a hundred and eighty a minute, three times my resting rate. I attributed this to the caffeine, but my heart rate went on rapidly accelerating. I decided to get up, and drank a cup of strong coffee. I put it down to jet lag: I’d just returned from South Africa, where my wife-like me, a physician-and I were working with a medical charity. In the early hours of Independence Day, 2018, I found myself awake.
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