Ways to react when a doctor starts talking about...

So, I'm at my appointment with the cardiologist yesterday, and he is reading all the different test results in front of me, doing all sorts of exams on me, making strange noises as he looks through the huge stack of papers in my chart. All in all, I'm getting mighty nervous. Thirty minutes of this goes on before he starts telling me what he thinks about my heart "stuff."

All in all, I got good news. There isn't something horribly wrong with my heart. The heart itself is very healthy, but for some reason, I am having premature beats and most of them are coming from my ventricle. Which apparently is cause for concern. However, since everything else looks good, it's not too concerning. But it is concerning. Confused? So was I.

And then he started talking about the fact that ventricular premature beats increases your risk of "suddenly keeling over dead." Yep. In a very matter fact tone of voice, he told me that my risk of "sudden death" wasn't zero, but it wasn't too elevated, but it wasn't as low as a normal person's--it's somewhat raised. So basically, I have a somewhat elevated risk of suddenly keeling over dead, but it's not too concerning, but it's still concering, however I can keep exercising, I need more testing and will start taking beta blockers after the testing, but overall, I'm okay. Right? Right.

So, if you doctor began to talk about your risk of "suddenly keeling over dead," I'm just curious. How would you respond?

Disclaimer: Just so you know, I really liked the doctor, and he was very knowledgeable and mostly understandable, my husband and I just got a big kick out of his matter of fact discussion on sudden death. And not just any death. But the keeling over kind.