Pipes, Pumps, and Poetry...

When I was in college, I continued the family tradition of working for my father. He had, at the time, partnership in several companies and was acting CEO of one of them. I did a myriad of jobs there – from special projects involving the photocopier, to sorting mail, creating asbestos abatement jobs, maintaining files, doing data entry and just generally helping out wherever I was needed. I think I even did landscaping once. It was an interesting place to work in that I was the 'boss's daughter' but really didn't receive special treatment in terms of the job. I started at minimum wage just like everyone else and I didn't get to slack off just because my dad was the head honcho. If anything, I was held to higher standards. If I got to go to lunch now and then with the boss, well, then, I guess I did get special treatment.

One summer they found themselves without an Accounts Receivable clerk, and so it seemed a logical (?) choice to make the Secondary Education / English major college student do it. After all, it only involved a lot of math. I did billings, sorted checks, applied payments to accounts, balanced books, ran month end reports, sent collection notices, and just generally got to play with the incoming (or lack of incoming) money. The part of the company structure for which I worked sold construction materials and abatement supplies to various other companies in the greater Rochester, Erie, Buffalo, and Syracuse areas. It was such a memorable part of my life that I still see random box vans around from companies I used to bill and my mind immediately reduces their names to their six-character account code. It was an interesting time, to be sure. I never would have been able to do it without the help of the Controller Donna and my big brother – who was office manager at the time. We had strange conversations in that office – him, me, and the Accounts Payable guy. I used to banter with the warehouse staff, too. That's really the only office job I've ever had and while I liked it – I can't imagine going back to an 8 – 5 schedule. Then again, leaving my work AT work might be nice now and then.

Anyway, the reason I'm sharing all of this is to explain a weird correlation in what I did there and a medical thing, for lack of a better word, that I have. One of the industries we served was HVAC and there was a lot of pipe and pipe related paraphernalia that was part of that. So, there are abbreviations and items that I still remember – one of them being PVC. Not that this stuff doesn't exist elsewhere and in other contexts, but because of this time in my life, when I hear PVC, I immediately think of white tubing. Polyvinyl Chloride. All kinds of lengths and thicknesses and shapes, like elbows. I had to look at part number after part number with what looked like gibberish strings of letters and numbers – but PVC was common enough that I understood it and it stuck.

This brings us to today – 15 years or so later. I have, as I said above, a heart condition where occasionally my heart (for no apparent reason) beats…well…wrong. Normally, one's ventricles contract AFTER the atria have helped to fill them. That way, the ventricles can pump the most amount of blood to the lungs and elsewhere. In this condition, however, from time to time it does it in the reverse order. The ventricles contract first, which results in inefficient circulation. Before anyone worries, this is not really a cause for concern unless it starts happening noticeably more often. I'm only aware of happening a few times a week, really, though it might happen more and I'm just too busy to notice it. There are a number of causes which are completely out of the realm of possibility for me – drugs, alcohol, and various medical conditions. It can be caused by too much caffeine, but I've recently cut a lot of caffeine out of my diet and I still have it. So…I'm guessing that it is stress related. Or it's just a thing. Either way, my doctor isn't worried, so I'm not either. He said if it starts bothering me, I can go on blood pressure meds and get some tests done – but I see no reason to do so. It's just a weird feeling.

When it happens, it usually feels like my heart has skipped a few beats…I can put my fingers on my pulse and feel it sort of hiccup. It's a very strange feeling, but I don't feel light-headed or anything. I've made a friend feel it because he was there at the time – he also said it felt weird. My husband, who has a thing against feeling blood moving around in the body, saw evidence of it when I had surgery last year – he could see my heartbeat on the heart monitor trundle along normally, and then plummet for a few beats, then go back to normal. It's an interesting sensation; and odd that something so weird and scary-sounding can be going on in the body and really be no cause for concern. As I keep saying, it's just a thing.

My heart is already special…now it's just a little more special, right?

So, to tie these two things together, you may have already guessed that the heart thing is called PVC. This time, however, it's not polyvinyl chloride – but, instead, premature ventricular contraction. It's funny to me that the time I spent in an industry that is so far removed from my current career and my passions is now linked, in a strange way, to something that is part of the very core of what makes me who I am. Not just the physical heart, but the heart as a symbol for the things that a heart is symbolic of. Somehow, specialized industry and medical science have joined together to remind me that everything is connected and there is poetry everywhere.