Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Have a heart
Once in a while, my heart will feel like it’s doing jumping jacks. I’ll take a deep breath and it stops. Well no, it doesn’t stop, it goes back to normal beating. It’s a little weird, but not enough to be distressing. Still, it’s your heart, the thing that needs to be functioning at all times or you drop dead instantly. So I went to see a cardiologist about it, just to be safe. Besides, I’m paying for health insurance, why not use it?
After an EKG, they decided I should have a sonogram done. Seriously, I didn’t know they did sonograms for anything other than pregnant ladies. So I got to have a jellied-up wand shoved into my chest while laying on my side and watching a monitor. That guy was digging pretty hard with that thing, practically shoving it into my ribs. Yes I understand there’s muscle and bone in the way, but do you mind?? Shall I swallow the damn wand for you? Would that get it closer to my heart?
Unpleasantness aside, it was kinda cool to see your own heart rhythmically squeezing, valves opening and closing. Were the results normal? I don’t know. The technician didn’t say anything like, “Oh my god, what the hell is that?” Not even a thoughtful, “Hmm...” We’ll see. They should be mailing my results sometime later.
In the meantime I get to wear a heart monitor for 24 hours. What a hoot. We can cram gigs of data onto a chip the size of my fingernail and yet they still can’t make a portable heartbeat recorder that can at least look like a pager. No, instead it’s the size of 5-year old MP3 player with a huge flat wire going up my shirt. It comes in this case with straps and the nurse says, “You can wear this around your neck.” Oh that’s wonderful! I’ve always wanted a wired black brick around my neck for a conversation piece. Couldn’t they at least put a belt loop on it or something?? A neckstrap, how ridiculous. 24 hours of that and I’d have to make an appointment with the chiropractor.