Two Beats From Oblivion

 I ignored my heart until it almost ignored me.

It started small — a flutter beneath my sternum, like a trapped bird testing its wings. I paused, hand still on the knife. One beat, two, three — then chaos. The rhythm collapsed.

My first thought wasn’t death. It was confusion. Then denial. I waited for it to right itself, like a skipped record catching back on track. But it didn’t. My pulse was everywhere — throat, wrist, temple — out of sync, out of sense.

The air thickened. I felt weightless and heavy all at once. My body knew before my mind did: something is wrong.

I didn’t scream. I went very quiet. The kind of quiet that belongs to hospitals, to people waiting for bad news. Inside that silence, the world slowed to the sound of my own uneven heart. I pressed my fingers to my neck and counted — badly — as if numbers could bargain with fate.

When the rhythm steadied, I didn’t feel relief. Just exhaustion. Shame. Like I’d failed some unspoken test of resilience. The skipped beats were no longer minor errors — they felt like tiny rebellions, warnings I had ignored. Life itself, whispering through my veins.

It had been creeping in for months. The fatigue I blamed on deadlines. The jittery mornings I told myself were just caffeine. The nights I woke with palpitations that I swore were “nothing.” Friends said: “Stress, you’re fine.” I said: “Yes, yes, of course.”

I ran three times a week. Ate vegetables. Slept in eight-hour blocks. But the subtle betrayals persisted — skipped beats while climbing stairs, dizzy spells when bending, that sudden heart-thump that froze me mid-sentence. I chalked it all up to stress, poor sleep, too much work, and never to my body’s failing signals.

The wake-up call came at 2 a.m. — a flutter, then chaos. My heart, usually obedient, now demanded attention. I called the GP the next morning, voice flat, as though reading a shopping list. They listened, measured my pulse, noted intermittent arrhythmia, and sent me for an ECG. Bloods were taken. Tests stacked.

The cardiologist said the words: paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. Episodes came and went. Some silent. Some terrifying. “You could stroke,” they said. “Or worse. Or not at all — we never know when.”

I left the hospital and went to the kitchen. My hands shook, though the kettle still worked. I made tea and counted the seconds between heartbeats. The number had no pattern, but my attention did. My life felt as precarious as the skipped rhythms themselves.

I started keeping a log. Flutters, skipped beats, nights awake. Triggers: stress, caffeine, late nights, dehydration, skipped meals. Slowly, a pattern emerged. Weekends were safer than Mondays. Exercise sometimes helped, sometimes didn’t. Food mattered. Sleep mattered. Awareness mattered more than I expected.

I added meditation, fifteen minutes each morning. Walked instead of ran — slow, deliberate. Water first, coffee later. Evenings, no screens. I took the medications prescribed — a low-dose beta-blocker to steady the heart, an anticoagulant to protect the brain — not because I wanted them, but because I wanted to survive my own body.

Months passed. The episodes lessened, less chaotic, more predictable. I learned to notice the whispers before they became shouts. My body felt quieter, but not silent — alive in a way I had never appreciated. The rhythm of my life became my own again, not an echo of fatigue, deadlines, or unacknowledged anxiety. I reclaimed mornings. I reclaimed energy. I reclaimed the small pleasures that work and denial had stolen.

The heart that once betrayed me became a teacher. I learned that sub-health isn’t always loud. It isn’t always pain. Sometimes, it’s a quiet betrayal of the everyday — a skipped beat, a fleeting exhaustion, a whisper you ignore. And the only way back isn’t heroism, but attentiveness, honesty, and persistence.

–––

These stories aren’t rare.
They’re just rarely told early enough.
Most decline begins in silence —
a skipped check-up, a cough you dismiss, a breath you pretend is fine.

She didn’t need saving.
Just a warning sooner.

––– Pause Here –––

If this feels familiar, you’re not alone.
Most illness doesn’t start with a bang.
It starts when silence becomes habit.

Lingzhi isn’t a miracle.
It’s a habit.
A quiet, daily way to care for the body —
before silence becomes suffering.

Lingzhi is a traditional food taken to support general well-being. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. For personalised advice, please consult a qualified healthcare practitioner.

#SubHealthStories #HealthIsAHabit #HappyHealthyLingzhi