Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Guilt Over Complications of the Heart

Guilt Over Complications of the Heart

This morning I'm feeling a bit guilty about something from last night...

In the evening, Leena came to me in a panic thinking she might be having a heart attack.  She said her Apple Watch was telling her something about "heart rate complications," and she knows she's at some risk as both of her parents have had heart attacks...

I guess while I know the Apple Watch has heart beat monitoring stuff, I don't know how much to trust it.  I asked her if maybe she'd had the Watch on too loose.  She didn't really answer, and I asked if maybe it was too tight?  Or maybe not aligned on her wrist properly or what.

Leena's not one for answering questions, as she doesn't like feeling like she's being interrogated and rebels at the idea of just simply answering.  She prefers talking and still kept saying stuff about "heart rate (or beat) complications".

Eventually I got out of her that she hadn't even been wearing the Watch.  She was holding it, and it was in some mode for configuring what gets displayed on the screen.  And it was giving her "heart rate complications".

Ah, that clarified things...  "Complications" in watchmaking means features on a watch beyond merely time keeping.  I only learned that a few years ago, through work, with our associating to a grey market luxury watch dealer.  I asked Leena if she was familiar with the term, since her family all has luxury watches, but she hadn't heard of "complications" in the horological sense.


Leena's older Rolex with a date "complication".

Here are some random Heart Rate Complications screen shots I just grabbed via Google:






I thought it was all resolved last night when I went to bed.  But this morning, thinking about it, I feel guilty that when Leena first told me she might be having a heart attack, I didn't even think of it as a medical emergency, I didn't think to call 911, that she might really be having a heart attack.


We're lucky this was just a misunderstanding of an obscure watchmaking term.  What'll happen if we have a genuine medical emergency in the future?