The Medical Moose & The Referral Muffin
Laura Finney
6/16/2026
“I don’t think you’re having a heart attack,” was not what I envisioned my new primary care provider saying as she clutched my EKG results.
Given that I hadn't actually suspected I was having a heart attack, and could think of no socially acceptable response to this information, I defaulted to a polite but thoroughly confused, "Thank you?"
She then proceeded to explain everything unusual about the EKG, and honestly, the list was longer than I found comforting. By the end of the conversation she was referring me to a cardiologist with a level of urgency that felt simultaneously reassuring and absolutely terrifying.
To be fair, neither of us had expected the appointment to take this turn.
I had originally scheduled the visit because my allergist wanted a cardiologist to sign off on my heart before she was willing to move forward with treatment. This was an inconvenience, primarily because I do not keep a cardiologist in my back pocket waiting to sign off on things.
The problem was that my heart had recently developed a flair for improvisation.
Months earlier, as some of the more dramatic Alpha-Gal symptoms began to settle down, I started noticing occasional flutters, skipped beats, and brief episodes where my heart seemed convinced we were in the middle of an emergency despite the fact that we were reading a book on the sofa.
I assumed it was simply another entry in Alpha-Gal's ever-expanding catalog of surprises.
My allergist was less inclined to guess.
At the time, I didn't even possess a primary care physician. After more than twenty years, mine had retired and, despite dedicating a ridiculous amount of time to finding another, I would have had better luck landing Taylor Swift tickets.
The few offices accepting new patients were booking into 2027, which seemed like an awfully long time to wait when my lotion was trying to kill me.
At this point, the situation had taken on a distinctly medical version of If You Give a Moose a Muffin quality. To get treatment from the allergist, I needed a cardiologist. To get a cardiologist, I needed a primary. To get a primary, I apparently needed the foresight of a clairvoyant and the luck of the Irish.
Having exhausted the suggestions of family and friends, I called a physician friend and asked for a cardiologist recommendation.
Instead, he suggested I start with a primary care physician and somehow managed to strong-arm one of his partners into taking me on as a patient asap.
Finally, I was one step closer.
Our initial meeting was going beautifully, and I felt like I was finally moving in the right direction with my new primary - right up until the moment I almost definitely wasn't having a heart attack.
After recovering from the conversational whiplash (she might as well have informed me that I was unlikely to be abducted by pirates that afternoon), I tried to focus on what she was actually saying.
As it turned out, my EKG had accomplished something months of phone calls had not. Urgency.
At first, this seemed like progress. After all, obtaining a cardiologist had been the entire point of the exercise.
Unfortunately, I would soon discover that if you are not actively dying, the cardiology department does not define "urgent" quite the same way I do.
I called immediately and explained the situation, fully expecting dramatic gasps on the other end of the line.
"Oh, you poor sweet soul," I imagined them saying. "Come straight over. We'll do our very best to keep you alive."
Instead, the rather bored scheduler replied, "Our first available appointment is in a month."
A month?
In preparation for this next step, I logged onto the healthcare portal to complete the seemingly endless forms. Is it just me, or do those questionnaires inspire an almost unreasonable sense of optimism?
As you work your way through the approximately 6,000 ailments a human being might possess, leaving box after box blissfully unchecked, you begin to feel like the healthiest person on Earth.
Heart disease? No.
Kidney disease? No.
Liver disease? No.
Unexplained rashes, fainting spells, spontaneous loss of consciousness, and several conditions that sounded like rejected Dickens characters? Also no.
For a brief, shining moment, I was practically the picture of health. Then I reached the allergy section, and everything came to a screeching halt.
I should state for the record that I hate—with a burning passion usually reserved for telemarketers and people who don't use turn signals—when Alpha-Gal Syndrome is described as a "red meat allergy."
Calling Alpha-Gal a red meat allergy is rather like describing the Titanic as a boating incident. The statement contains facts, but it fails to convey the overall experience.
So when I reached the allergy section and it offered "Alpha-Gal: Red Meat," I wanted to reach through the screen, scratch it out with a red pen, and write a strongly worded essay in the margin.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t an option, so I checked the box, and moved on.
After months of medical hot potato, I was finally about to see the cardiologist.
I really hadn’t given much thought to what a cardiology office would be like. I assumed it would be the same as any other doctor waiting room, with months old People magazines, and a 1:1 ratio of faux plants to hand sanitizer dispensers. When I walked in, someone was standing at the reception desk filling out forms and effectively blocking access to the counter.
The receptionist looked up, stood, and shouted at me over the patient:
"NAME?"
This struck me as an unusual approach to medical privacy.
As far as I could tell, her plan was to have me announce my identity to a room full of strangers before I'd even removed my coat.
Perhaps HIPAA means something different in cardiology.
Although glancing around the room, where the median age was approximately 107, I realized there was little to no chance of being overheard.
The doctor herself was lovely. She listened carefully as I explained why I was there. She freely admitted that she had never heard of Alpha-Gal Syndrome, but unlike some medical professionals I have encountered, she seemed genuinely interested in learning.
When I mentioned the allergy intake form, she laughed.
"I noticed that," she said, "I wasn't planning to offer you a steak."
I laughed too. Then I lowered the boom.
"Did you know," I began, with the confidence of someone who is about to drop every statistic she’s ever read onto an innocent stranger, "that it's estimated that roughly 75% of medications in the United States contain mammal-derived ingredients?"
She blinked.
"Seventy-five percent?"
"Seventy-five percent. And that's before we get to things like sutures, heart valves, stents, adhesives, surgical materials, bandages, and a surprisingly long list of medical products that apparently required mammal.”
She stared at me for a moment.
"So no, you probably weren't going to offer me a steak. But there’s a really good chance you’d offer me something just as dangerous."
I won't bore you with the rest of the visit. Suffice it to say that she was somewhat confounded by the whole situation and prescribed a battery of additional tests that would take the next three months to complete and cost approximately what I paid for my first car.
Had I not been so anxious to get the allergy treatment that had started this whole chain of events - and which I was positive would solve the heart problem, I might have politely declined and gone on living with my Latin mambo of a heart. We had reached an understanding, my heart and I. I didn't question its choreography, and it generally remembered to keep me alive.
Three months later, the results were in. My heart, it turned out, was “boring” and mostly behaving itself. Mostly. There was just one small electrical issue that the cardiologist felt deserved further investigation. I, on the other hand, felt it deserved to be ignored until after I got the allergy treatment I had been chasing for months.
The cardiologist had a different opinion.
And unfortunately, in medicine, the person holding the referral pad usually wins