The nurse took the temperature under my tongue. “Your temperature is 93°F! That’s not good,” She said.
Normal body temperature is 98.6F. The life-threatening emergency medical condition known as hypothermia is defined as the core body temperature dropping below 95°F. I was technically hypothermic.
“Wait, your pulse is 33! That’s not possible. I’m not even going to write that down.” She continued, before rushing out of the room to bring in a physician’s assistant. He ran all the tests again. When I stopped talking to him, my pulse slowed back down to 33 again.
“I thought my resting pulse rate was low.” he said, “It’s in the fifties because I run a lot.”
“Mine is usually about 38 bpm.” I said, “I meditate a lot.”
“How are you feeling? Do you feel light-headed?” He asked me, looking very concerned.
I responded, “No, I feel fine.” I felt great: calm, relaxed, clear minded, and focused.
“Well, your blood oxygen level is 100%, so you have good profusion,” he said, with some relief.
I had already told them more than once, including just after I arrived for the routine test, that only twenty minutes earlier I had gotten out of a 15-minute ice bath at 41°F (5°C). It takes some time for the body to warm up again.
