Today, I went to see a cardiologist at one of the hospitals here. She is my father's doctor during his recovery period from his surgery. Because of my father's unusual circumstances and the fact that he did not display the normal symptoms of having a heart attack and heart disease, they want to be careful and see if my brother and I have inherited this defect from my father.
His cardiologist arranged for me to be referred to her and they set me up to do a stress test to see how my heart and blood pressure performs under exercise. I really had no idea what to expect. I should have done a little bit of research, but I feel like if I did that then I would have been more scared than I already was. When they took my resting heart beat, it was a lot faster than what it is normally because I was so nervous and anxious. I was just afraid of the unknown I guess. This is a totally new experience and hospitals are relatively foreign to me. Before going to that hospital in Slovakia last year I don't even remember the last time I was in one.
They had a ECG (electrocardiogram) machine with a bunch of wires attached to me. The machine is the one in the center right under the monitor and behind the keyboard. It was very clunky. I had to wear a belt like thing on my waist the whole time. There were so many wires! At first, when I was at rest, the things that were stuck onto my were really itchy. I just wanted to scratch at everything, but I resisted the urge. I've actually done a ECG before. Way back when I fainted in Slovakia. The doctors there wanted to make sure my heart was okay. But this was a very different experience.
The treadmill they put me on was weird. Very different from the ones that you find at gyms. You can see it above on the right. They have intervals set out and it increases every 3 minutes. I was surprised at how fast the thing was going even from the start. I feel like if I haven't been exercising on and off the past few months I wouldn't be able to keep up. Every time the pace quicken, they also increased the incline of the treadmill. Every couple of minutes my blood pressure was taken as well.
I had no issues for the first 3 sets of intervals. But the 4th one was really uncomfortable so I asked to stop. The pace was one that we between a run and a walk. It was too fast for me to walk, my strides aren't long enough. But much too slow for me to jog. I was already sore from running yesterday so trying to lengthen my stride was rather painful so I gave up. The gown that I was wearing didn't help matters either. It kept getting caught up. But it was okay. They wanted my heart rate to get to 175 and it did that already.
It was interesting to watching my heart rate go up and down. When the pace of the machine changed, my heart rate would increase, but as I stayed at one pace for awhile, it would fall back down again. At the last interval I think my heart beat got up to 184 but within a minute fell back down to 179 where it stayed.
I met with the cardiologist immediately after the stress test and she went over my test results. I had my cholesterol taken previously and she was really happy with that. My bad cholesterol score was really low - for most people they need to be medically brought down to that point. I had more good cholesterol than I did bad as well so that's really healthy. My heart rate was normal - no weird patterns and when it was brought down to rest, it performed normally as well. My blood pressure was fine the whole time. So all in all, I have a good heart. It's just about keeping it up and maintaining it. Exercise and eating healthy. Less meat.
I have a follow up ultrasound of the heart. I've been put on the wait list so really it can happen any time they have a cancellation. Because my father's condition was a result of a valve, they just want to take a look at mine to make sure it is operating fine.
So this is good news. This is one less thing for me to worry about. So many other things on my mind.
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