I only went and drabbled all over the Professor on his birthday...

Title: Le Petit Mort Par Chocolat
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Whatever you do, don't mention his birthday. I did, but I think I got away with it...
A/N: I'm sorry, I didn't let stgulik do her job on this and it shows. But Thursday's the Prof's birthday, and these drabbles don't write themselves and if they did, these characters would still belong to JKR. But I don't think she'll miss them for this little piece of silliness...

By the way, happy birthday, you bloody-minded pain in the arse delight, you.

( The Overly Long Birthday Drabble )

The Beta That Must Be Blocked

I'm going to make this a short one, because I'm so tired, but in a better way than I've been these last two weeks. Last night, TheHubs® took me to the ER. My irregular heartbeat had got to the point of making me feel achy and out of breath. I was having chest pains and scared and fed up and just couldn't take it anymore, even though I know the bill for it will be insurmountable.

My heart was indeed palpitating all over the place, and they kept me overnight while my BP gradually dropped from 240/109 down to normal. Blood was taken several times, which showed my heart to be in good shape, and that beta blockers were needed to slow it down and allow it to adjust back to normal rhythm. The BB help enormously, though I can feel it when it starts to wear off, but at least I know I'm not about to keel over with a heart attack. I was so freaked out that I actually had a full-blown panic/anxiety attack when I reached my room for the night, and saw 'stress test and heart cath' on the board. I found out later neither had been ordered but the last chemical stress test I took nearly killed me, and I'm terrified of invasive procedures. I only needed an ultrasound.

I still have followup visits, but for tonight, I'm going to turn in early and catch up on rest. It seems that my irregular heart is just something to live with, and the meds will help it. Just feeling it calm down last night was such pure blessed relief.

I realise I owe people Newbies gifts and such, but to be honest, for the last two weeks I've been too ill and miserable to do much more than smile and wave. I hope with this new, very effective med, I'll be back on track in no time. Thank you for being so patient with me - I was so afraid and exhausted, I couldn't concentrate on anything.

The only bright spot was that Love Actually was on TCM at 1am when I couldn't sleep. At least I got to see our sweet prince for a few hours as way of consolation. It helped me to finally drift off at 4am, Shame the really sweet nurse woke me up at 4:15 to take more blood.