Genesis
I’ve known for a while that there are things I need to give up in order to live longer. I know that my insane Coca-Cola consumption cannot continue at its current rate; it will end up eroding my bones completely, or perhaps drain the Midwest of its precious reserves of high fructose corn syrup, initiating global economic collapse.
And I need to exercise more. Which is tricky, because I’m pretty asthmatic, and also lazy. But with my son turning into an interesting human-shaped thing (instead of Inert Pile of Baby) I had resolved to start walking a lot, playing ping pong again, and generally trying to reach that 150 minutes of cardiac goodness per week that all those doctors whip themselves into a frenzy over.
But there’s some uneasiness there. My dad died when I was 19 (he was 42), so I tend to be Very Cautious with regard to my health (disregarding the incredible soda habit). This annoys my wife to no end, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to chase down every sniffle and fibrillation I have for the rest of my life, terrified that I have some new and exciting disease that will cut my time short and leave my son growing up without a father.
So to the doctor I go! Let’s make sure my heart isn’t going to explode in my chest!
The First Meeting
I’ve been seeing this doctor since my son was born; she’s his GP, and it made sense for us all to see the same doctor (for a reason that escapes me). She took my family history, which includes some heart disease, and suggested a routine ECG.
The nurse came in and hooked me up, and took a reading that lasted about 12 seconds. “The doctor will be with you to go over the results in a few moments,” she intoned as she packed up her equipment and left.
“A few moments” became half an hour, and the doctor walked in exclaiming “sorry that took so long! I was expecting it to be normal!”
what
I missed the rest of what she said, but it boiled down to:
- I had an abnormal ECG reading that suggested I was in the process of having a heart attack
- Since I was obviously not clutching my chest and turning purple, I should probably have a stress echo
She scheduled me an appointment with the hospital cardiologists in the Echo Lab for the following Thursday and bade me on my way.
Aside: Since something was wrong with my heart, at this point I began to notice every single twinge of pain or arrhythmic impulse centered on or near my chest. I would climb stairs, painfully aware of the sound and feeling of my heart moving in my chest, willing it to keep beating.
24 Hours Prior
I had been told to cease caffeine at T minus 24 hours, so I did. I swallowed the last of my tea with a sad smile, tossing the cup spitefully in the trash instead of the recycle bin. Yeah, that’s right. Take that, Earth.
Sleeping was pretty difficult, because The Headache was already manifesting. Then came the Fever, bringing with him his buddy Chills. I ended up sleeping three hours, partially because I was unable to find a good sleeping position due to fever and sweating, and partially because I was awakened around 3:00 AM by what I assumed was my window AC unit exploding, but turned out to be a large railroad thing regraveling the tracks for some reason.
The Big Event
A “stress echo” (Stress Echocardiogram) is a procedure where the doctor takes an ultrasound of your resting heart, then puts you on a treadmill to get your heart rate up to around 160 beats per minute. When you’re too exhausted to continue, they quickly take another ultrasound to make sure your heart functions correctly when stressed.
Oh, also they shave your chest if you’re above a certain hairiness threshold. I’m proud to say my 2.3 kiloselleck mane took two nurses and four razors to tame.
I was hooked up to an ECG, blood pressure cuff, finger monitor, and had ultrasound goo smeared on me, all the while the nurses saying “are you sure you can do this?” I was of the position that I had already given up caffeine for 24 hours for this, and there’s no way I’m doing that again. So it’s now or never.
Well, they said it was never. They called off the test because my resting heart rate was already 120 beats per minute. And I was drenched with fever-sweat. And (surprise!) I had a different ECG abnormality than I had last week.
They didn’t tell me this, of course. Instead, a random nurse would walk in ever few minutes and look at a monitor, or rub an ultrasound wand on my sternum, or take my temperature, then mutter “… hunh.” and scamper out of the room. Finally one of them sat down with me and told me calmly that I was going to the Emergency Room.
The Emergency Room?
Hospital Policy dictated that I be taken to the ER by wheelchair with too little pressure in the tires, so my caffeine headache exploded with every little bump and jostle. Everyone was chummy though, and I was soon situated in the hospital’s most uncomfortable bed, waiting for someone to tell me that they were going to give me a baboon heart or whatever.
If you’ve never been to the ER, I highly recommend it. I was very nearly strapped to the bed with my own ECG wires, and the ‘call nurse’ button was disconnected which meant I had something to tinker nervously with while I listened to the motorcycle crash victim breathe erratically next to me, and the poor woman down the hall having her lungs suctioned with what I assume was a Dyson.
After about an hour (average heart rate: 120 beats per minute; blood pressure: 162/110) I got to speak with a doctor. Not just any doctor, mind you, but an actual Doctor, complete with bedside manner. He explained that “normal ECGs” were only seen about 10% of the time and that my ECG was “near normal”. Oh, and had I taken my SSRIs today?
Uh, no, I hadn’t, because the ECG instructions said…
Well, caffeine and SSRIs both impact the sympathetic nervous system, and sudden secession can do whacky stuff to things like ‘heart rate’ and ‘blood pressure’ and ‘ECG readings’. They got me some soda and some antidepressants, then watched my heart for the next two hours.
Aside: Bear in mind that I was told to stop eating and drinking 4 hours before the stress test, so I hadn't consumed anything for nearly 10 hours at this point. I was pretty weak in addition to the incredible pounding caffeine headache.
Resolution
I guess the SSRIs and caffeine worked, because the doctor came back and told me I was being discharged and that my heart is fine. He cleared me for walking, jogging, weight-lifting… whatever I felt comfortable doing.
“Heli-skiing?” I offered.
“Probably not,” he suggested.
Here I sit, five hours later. I’m pretty tired, but probably because I’ve only had 1000 calories today and nearly no sleep. My chest itches, and I’ve probably maxed out my deductible for the year, but I have a clean bill of health for the time being. And I intend on keeping it fairly well clean for a while.
But first I’m going to watch my son sleep for a bit.