Maybe the Heart Remembers…

“If I only knew […] why I have palpitations the whole time—it is very disquieting; I keep thinking about it. For, you see, a person ordinarily has palpitation of the heart when he is frightened, or when he is looking forward to some great joy. But when the heart palpitates all by itself, without any reason, senselessly, of its own accord, so to speak, I feel that’s uncanny; you understand, as if the body was going its own gait without any reference to the soul…It is disturbing and unpleasant to have the body act as thought it had no connexion with the soul, and put on such airs—by which I mean these senseless palpitation. You keep trying to find an explanation for them, an emotion to account for them, a feeling of joy or pain, which would, so to speak, justify them….”

Thomas Mann, “The Magic Mountain”

He woke up, afraid. Something was wrong in his body. He couldn’t feel his heart. Fear. After a moment of reflection, he thought that maybe it was a sign that yesterday’s ablation had been successful. For the last 2 years he had been constantly aware of his heartbeat. It was often unpleasant, but now that it had suddenly disappeared, he felt anxious. And yet previously, for several years, he’d never thought about his heart. He hadn’t felt it beating. It was strange, though. It had been silent for such a long time, even though it seemed that there had been many reasons for his heart to beat quickly and restlessly.

How was his heart beating now? Was it thumping as strongly as if he was running away, while he was probably still standing at the table? Or maybe it was stopping, frozen with fear? Was it stumbling unevenly, trembling like the chills of a child awakened at night by soldiers appearing in his house, shouting in a foreign language? He couldn’t remember. Well, he couldn’t have remembered anyway, as he’d only been 3 at the time. Actually, he probably couldn’t remember anything now anyway. What had his mother said as she quickly packed a quilt and the suits and coat of an absent father into a big wooden trunk? Had she tried to calm her children as she added bags of flour, sugar, and cocoa to the trunk as well? Had his older sisters been crying? He couldn’t even remember that, so how could he remember how his heart beat? He occasionally got the impression that he could picture his mother, reaching for the head of a sewing machine, and a soldier shouting in Russian “Why do you need that?” But perhaps his imagination created this image for him after decades of listening to his mother’s and sister’s memories of how it was this machine that had helped them survive those 6 years in Kazakhstan.¹

And back then? How his heart had raced as they had waited long hours until a good neighbour would dig them out from the snow dropped on them by the buran. They had sat together in one room—he, his 2 sisters, his mother, and his aunt and her 2 children. Did he understand that there was only snow above their home, through which there was no way out? How had his heart behaved during those long hours of stillness? Did it beat faster when he hid, to eat the egg his mother had given him in secret? An egg, a whole egg, which could not be divided among several children, so he had got it—the youngest one! Was it the egg, this one egg, that had given him the strength to survive 6 winters in the steppe, in Posiołka Donieckoje?

Why couldn’t he remember how his heart had beaten in 1946, when they had returned to Poland? When, after 6 years, they had met with their father? And when 2 years later, dad had been arrested.

He remembered, then. In the following years he had been studying in Warsaw, anxiously awaiting letters from home. They had to be addressed by his father, so if the address was written by his mother, it could mean bad news—his dad had been arrested again. One day, his mother’s writing had indeed been on the envelope…and for a dozen seconds before he opened it and began reading the letter, his heart had pounded, only calming later.²

He rarely heard or felt his heart now, even though there had been many moments of fear and emotion in his life.

So how did it happen that his heart had begun to beat uneasily so many years later? When relaxed and content, he used to sit in his chair in the evening, in his new home, thinking with satisfaction that another successful day had passed by. And there was nothing to be frightened of. He had lived to see safe times and could think about himself and his children’s future at ease. And then there were the violent jerks, the galloping, the pauses, the tramping along, and pausing again. Anxiety, surprise. Why now? Why in moments when he felt relaxed? After all, he was not suffering with any health problems, and he was in good shape for 65. He went skiing, and traveled several hundred kilometres every week by car between work and his home by the lake. There was no reason to be stressed anymore, this was such a good, peaceful time in his life. However, his heart kept reminding him of its presence. He felt its uneven, fast beating, interrupted by pauses, more and more often, in the evening during rest, and also during the day. One day, as he was driving along in his car, he had become incredibly frightened when his heart had suddenly started raging. He pulled over to the shoulder and waited several minutes before moving off again.

He went to see a doctor after that. During the exercise echocardiography (ECG), he had even felt satisfied that he was doing quite well. The doctor had said that there was nothing disturbing to be seen. However, a few minutes later, while resting after the electric treadmill with the electrodes still attached, there was suddenly some kind of movement around him. The nurse who had been occasionally checking the ECG monitor suddenly said, “Please lie down. How are you feeling? Are you feeling very weak?.” A female doctor ran in. Telephone calls and someone saying, “We’ve called an ambulance, you have to go to hospital….” He didn’t really want to. He felt well and argued that he could get in his car and drive there himself, and all this fuss was unnecessary.

Then, there were a few days in hospital. Instead of dealing with his company, contracts, appointments, and planned ski trips, he was stuck in a cardiology unit, where his inaction was only interrupted by various tests. Diagnosis: paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. Drugs. He returned home, went to work, and went skiing. However, something had changed. He already knew that his heart was not holding its rhythm. He increasingly often felt it beating unevenly, and when he couldn’t feel it he began listening within himself. He was alert, almost anticipating when the galloping, stumbling, pausing would start again. He felt his heart’s presence within his chest—it reminded him about its presence. And then he had the ablation—a few hours on the table, some pain, anxiety. The night after the procedure he felt uncomfortable lying in a supine position, with a pressure dressing on his groin. Awakening, he had this strange feeling that he couldn’t feel his heart. Fear. Then, after a moment of reflection: “Maybe this is a sign that yesterday’s ablation was successful,” he thought to himself…

Author Biography

Agnieszka Maryniak is a clinical psychologist. Her professional interests relate to two areas: developmental neuropsychology and psychological aspects of cardiac arrhythmia. She works with both children and adult patients.