Our house has been jammed packed with people for the past few days; it's been lovely. Now they've gone and I have time to reflect upon the midwinter gathering. All is calm, all is bright here. But my thoughts have turned to you, dear reader, because I have something really interesting to impart. I'm hoping too that by tagging this post, I might hear from other people on the subject.
The subject is electrosensitivity. Maybe this topic had fleetingly been picked up by my curiosity radar in passing over the years, because it was the thing that I immediately thought of back in October when, on a couple of occasions, I found myself in sitting in our local pub and experiencing palpitations. The particular gymnastics in which my heart was engaging on both occasions was of the missing beat variety. Between five and eight beats on average and one missed. I became aware of the missing one and felt a tad strange. Both times it happened I said nothing to anyone, just carried on and after about an hour and a half all went back to normal and I was none the worse for it. I felt at the time as if some force outside myself might be responsible. I know, you're now thinking I've gone particularly batty. The thing is, I'm now more in tune with my body than I ever was before and I can read it so well, and I knew that nothing was out of kilter; so the palpitations had to be due to something else.
Those of you know know where we live will be aware of a large mast at the top of the hill upon whose lower slopes we reside. I'm pretty sure that we are in the shadow of all the various waves that the mast emits where we live, but further on down the village where the pub's located would, I'm sure, receive the full brunt. It doesn't stretch the imagination too far to summise that the titanium in my chest (with which the surgeon stapled up the bronchial tubes) might be acting as an aerial and - lying slow close to my heart as it does - could be affecting the electrical charges which control my heartbeat. You can see the titanium staples here - they look black on the x-ray.
I've been back to the pub several times since October and nothing untoward has occurred so I'd pretty well forgotton about it. However yesterday something happened which convinced me that I was right all along. I stepped within about a foot of my grandson's infrared remote control. It was as if someone had switched a switch in my chest. My heart immediately started to beat around double its normal speed. I sat down and tried to make sense of what had happened. Probably no more than a minute passed, but during that minute I was assessing how I felt (perfectly normal), what the waiting time would be in A&E (about four hours), what attendance there might trigger (a life on beta blockers) and other vital matters. I never got round to actually counting the speed because my heart popped back to normal. It was like that for a few beats, then it had another little sprint, before returning to its usual solid regular beat. I felt no after-effects, nothing, just surprise.
What this incident did is to convince me is that I am sensitive and I probably should avoid anything which is emitting very strong signals. I've done a bit of Googling but can't find anything which relates to my situation and Wikipedia isn't much help either. But there's plenty of advice out there for those with pacemakers which I think I'd be well advised to follow.
Sounds like you're onto something Sue. Many years ago I was in a pub and a lady came up to me and asked most politely if I would turn off my mobile phone, she had some form of problem with radio waves and had with her, what I thought could be similar to a sort of geiger counter. It emitted a sound when placed near my phone. I complied with her request but at the time, it got me thinking about the many types of radio and digital waves flying around. The air must be jam packed by now.
ReplyDeleteOh and Happy New Year! xxx