'I can clearly hear a mumur...'

'Can you tell what it is yet?'

My Doctor would ask in his best Rolf Harris voice to the young Junior Doctors all huddled around me prodding, poking requesting deep breathes in... and out, in... and out

Due to my obvious rare condition I find myself quite often thrown at the mercy of young aspiring Doctors. Like a sheep to the wolves, I'm used to test someones ability, even in the world of medicine my condition is not always widely recognised and I must offer a little help along the way.


When having any procedure done unless its with my own Doctor who is fully aware of internal structure I almost always open with the line 'I'm Dextrocardic'. Not every time though, sometimes I like to have little fun, mix it up, break the cycle to test one's ability....

I was once lying in casualty having been brought in with chest pain and difficulty breathing having only returned home a few days earlier from a catheter procedure to insert a plug into one of my leaking valves.

The Cardiac Nurse was doing some tests and as I didn't really want to be hanging about the cold DAZ inspired white room I had been left in (and would be destined to stay for a further 5 hours) I thought I'd help hurry things along. As she was hooking me up for an E.C.G. I opened with the line that usually gets a few raised eyebrows from the nurses...

'I'm Dextrocardic'

'I know dear, I wouldn't be much of a Cardiac Nurse if I didn't know that'
she said with a laugh.... as she continued to hook me up the wrong way.

After seeing the readout she realized her mistake, but we all saw it, there was no denying of what just happened.


As I started saying, I'm used to Junior Doctors all huddling around me, wooing and ahhhing. Like NASA Scientists would if a Spaceship crash landed and they managed to pull an alien from the wreck and have it do little tests for them as they realise of this amazing discovery.

Most Doctors click quite quickly, others not so quick and some are willing to throw in the towel and decide I'm somehow dead.

I recall one up and comer attempting to give me a go...

'I can clearly hear some kind of murmur, possibly.... (makes assumption of words I can't possibly remember)'


I'd like to think that this is how my Doctor wanted to reply...

'No, you complete idiot, what the hell are you listening to? There is nothing there, you are on the wrong side of his chest... Surely you can tell that the beats of the heart would be too weak for this guy to be even breathing, if he went into cardiac arrest now with just you here he would be dead, you would be zapping emptiness with the paddles, in fact you would probably shock his heart out the side of his chest... You want to be a Doctor? Then take a look at an image of the bodies internal organs, see where the heart is positioned? Yes, you should be able to hear a nice clear heartbeat not a murmur, not a stomach rumbling, not wind... Now get back down to your mothers basement before I shove your stethoscope...'

I would have enjoyed that, but unfortunately the reply was usually a 10 minute speech using words I cannot pronounce apart from 'heart' and 'wrong side'.

 

 

 

Although by my post it may not seem like it but I like working with Junior Doctors. When they study me I enjoy the excitement a lot of them get from attempting to diagnose me. It also gives them first hand experience of a rare condition which benefits the patients they work with in the future who have such condition.

Myself: At an age when I was a little less sympathetic to the doctors prodding and poking me so they could attempt to give they're diagnostic