After I’ve demolished the entire glass, the doctor comes to talk to me. He’s kind, about the same age as my father and with that same air of practical superiority, which should be off-putting but in the hospital setting serves to put me at ease. He’s exactly the type of person you want as your doctor. Almost as if he was born for the role.
Dr Harrington explains what happened, that I had a panic attack and then couldn’t breathe and eventually I passed out. And then I had another one when I woke up the first time but he seems to think that’s understandable given the circumstances I found myself in.
‘Do you know what might have triggered it?’ he asks, his voice soft and gentle.
For a moment I contemplate telling him the truth. But then I shove that idea far far down into my subconscious and instead spin a tale of work stress and boyfriend trouble and a general sense that the world is all just a bit too much at the moment.
He smiles, showing me the top row of a perfectly straight pair of teeth. Dr Harrington obviously has a very good dentist. ‘Has anything like this happened before?’
I shake my head. Although perhaps it has to this Bethany? Perhaps this Bethany is prone to panic attacks but she knows how to manage them. How would I even know?
‘Okay. Well, I think we should run a few more tests, just to be sure there isn’t an underlying condition that’s exacerbating the symptoms.’
The tests – mainly an ECG, the sensors cold on my skin – are run and then Dr Harrington is back at the side of my bed. But this time his smile looks fake, like he’s putting it on to put me at ease. Immediately I feel my heart rate spiking. There’s something wrong with me.
‘Arrhythmia,’ he tells me, again with that same soft tone of voice, but he doesn’t try to sugar-coat the diagnosis.
I have a heart condition. It’s minor. Manageable. There is very good treatment available and I can live a full and healthy life.
‘Be grateful we found out about it now,’ Dr Harrington tells me.
I don’t reply, but I give him a slightly confused look.
‘Well, you see,’ he begins to elaborate, ‘if it had goneundetected, and then you’d put your body under even more stress, like a marathon or something—’
I make a noise at the back of my throat that makes it very clear I have never even so much as contemplated running a marathon – and never will.
‘Well,’ he continues, ‘you could have triggered a proper heart attack. A serious one with long-term consequences. Even fatal ones.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes.’ He nods a few times. ‘In a way you’ve been very lucky.’
I’m not sure I feel lucky. But then I start to wonder. Do we all have this. All of the Bethanys?
‘Why?’ I ask.
‘Why?’ Dr Harrington repeats as if trying to understand the question I’m asking.
‘Yes. As in what caused it. This arrhythmia?’
‘Oh. Well.’ He rakes his hand through his hair. ‘It’s a genetic condition.’
‘So I’ve always had it?’
‘Yes. You would have been born with it, but quite often this type of condition goes undiagnosed for years, decades. Until something happens and you have an ECG and then we find it.’
So we do all have it.
That night I write a note to myself. To this Bethany. Detailing the condition and the medication and the details of our – mine? Her? – doctor. I make a mental note to tell all the other Bethanys whose lives I move through.
Perhaps I’m not destined to just wade through their lives leaving chaos in my wake. Perhaps at least I can make surethey know about the arrhythmia. Make sure they all go to the doctor in their own worlds. Make sure none of us end up with those fatal consequences.
Is that what I’m here to do? Save myself in a thousand different universes?
Chapter Thirty-One
The thought that perhaps there’s a purpose to the skipping carries me through the next day as I wait patiently to be discharged from the hospital, armed with a new and somewhat profound appreciation of my own mortality and a stack of pamphlets that feel somewhat superfluous in this age of the internet.
