Isobel Connelly - 360 Beats Per Minute

 

So, I’m six years old. I’m afraid of kites, balloons, Santa Claus, [audience chuckle] the Easter Bunny and really any adults that aren’t my parents. I sit in an ER with my mom. I’ve gone there, because this weird thing happened to my heart and it started beating really, really fast and no one really knew what it was. And so, we sit there and this kind doctor comes in and he looks at me and he looks at my mom and he says, “Isobel, there’s something wrong with your heart, but we don’t really know what it is.” They said, “It could be this thing called supraventricular tachycardia, or SVT. Essentially what this means, is that there is an arrhythmia in your heart and so your heart beats really, really, really fast and it’s very dangerous” in the deaf sense [chuckles] of the word. [audience laughter]

 

But they didn’t tell me that, because I was six. Instead, they said, “Isobel, when this happens, you need to find an adult immediately and get to the ER.” And for six-year-old Isobel, this is two very terrifying things happening at once. [audience chuckle] I have to talk to an adult that I don’t know, and then I have to go to the ER, a place that I don’t know. And so, they just let us leave, because they said there’s nothing you can really do until it happens again and you come back. And so, we leave and I go to school and it doesn’t really affect me. I try not to think about it. I go to my friend’s house with my mom. 

 

We live in San Francisco, and so you have to drive everywhere and there are a lot of hills. We get there and I’m upstairs and we’re doing whatever little six-year-old kids do. And my heart starts to beat so quickly. I look around and I’m a little bit freaked out and I go downstairs and I grab my mom’s wrist and I’m like, “Mom, it’s happening. We have to go to the ER now.” And so, she takes me and we jump in the car and we drive to the ER. And because this is San Francisco, the only parking space is at the bottom of the hill, and the ER is at the top of the hill. [chuckles] And so, we run up the hill. My mom’s out of breath, and I’m even more out of breath and everything’s starting to get a little bit hazy. We get in there and the woman at the front desk is like, “Welcome to the ER.” [audience laughter] And my mom’s like, “She’s having supraventricular tachycardia.” [audience chuckle] And the woman’s like, “Oh, my God.” [audience laughter] 

 

[cheers and applause] 

 

They whisk me into this other part of the ER. I’m in a bed, this white cot. And suddenly, there’s this wash of blue, the blue scrubs. I’m starting to realize that I don’t really feel very okay anymore. I can feel my heart beating and they’re attaching all these different things to me. And this man grabs my arm and he says, “I have to put the IV in your arm.” And this has happened to me like six times now and I know how much it’s going to hurt and I so badly do not want him to do it. And I say, “Please, please don’t.” And he says, “I have to.” And so, he does. And I hate it.

 

And then, they look at the monitor. And for those of you who don’t know, a regular heartbeat is about 60 to 100 beats per minute. At the height of this heart thing, my heart was beating 360 beats per minute. [audience aww] So, they look at the monitor and they’re looking at me, and I’m looking back at them, hoping to just find something in their eyes telling me that I’m going to be okay. And the doctors start to look nervous. When doctors start to look nervous, I get nervous. [audience laughter] They look at me and they look at the monitor and they call the head cardiologist from the hospital to come down, because they’ve never seen anything like this. They all go away into this corner. 

 

My mom wears these clinky bracelets. When I hear them, I know it’s all going to be okay. But I don’t hear those clinky bracelets anymore and it’s really quiet and I really don’t think I’m going to be okay. The doctors come over to me, and they start unpacking this thing and they go, “Isobel, we’re going to have to give you this medicine. This medicine is going to stop your heart from beating and it should pick right back up again. But if it doesn’t, we’re going to defibrillate you.” So, they put two stickers on my chest, and the guy sits there with the defibrillator, and he looks at me, and the head cardiologist puts this medicine into the IV, and they look at me, and they look at the monitor and suddenly it goes flat. And then, it goes beep, beep, beep and I’m okay.

 

So, by this time, they’re 100% sure I have supraventricular tachycardia. [audience laughter] And they tell me, “Isobel, you’re going to have an operation. They call it an ablation.” I will be the third person in the world of my age to have the operation. I’m fine. I had it. I’m okay. My heart is totally normal now. But I’ve had lots of different encounters with hospitals and doctors. What I’ve really taken away from it, is that I’m no longer that little kid who’s afraid to say how they’re feeling. I call people out on their shit. [audience laughter] I have this feeling inside of me that if doctors can save me once, I really believe that they can save me again. Thank you.