jfc, my heart
so over the past 5yrs or so, i’ve had a couple of health scares. fortunately they turned out to be nothing serious
but now i have a new doctor and she wants to establish some new baselines for me, right?
-no biggie
so she decided that a skress test was necessary
-cool, no big
and she informed me that this skress test would basically be me walking/running on a treadmill with hella leads attached to my torso and a blood pressure cuff on my arm as i’m going through the test
-pfft. whatever. i run 3 - 5 miles every morning before i go swimming
she said that the goal was to get my heart rate up to 127(?) (maybe 137? 140? i don’t remember) and see if there were any problems on the big screen ekg (cardiograph?) as i progressed through the test
-so alls i gotta do is walk or run until my heart rate reaches a certain point? bring it. (in my head i’m imagining the 50¢, “in da club” video, right??)
but then she says, i need to fast for 12hrs prior, with no food, no caffeine, no water and no liquids (bc they don’t want anything masking my readings)
-fuk. das a lot, doc but aight. i’ll do it i guess
so on the day of the test (today) they hook me up to all the machines and i jump on the treadmill. at first its a super slow pace (like 1.3 mph, i think) BUT the starting incline is at 12 !!
and then 3 minutes later, they crank the speed up to 2.5mph and increase the incline again
-that’s it? that’s all you got, doc??
3 minutes later, they increase the incline and up the speed again
-oh. oh damn
3 minutes later, guess what they do? yup, increase the speed and the incline again
-uh, hey doc, how much longer we gon do this? (now i’m beginning to sweat and actually breathing through my mouth instead of my nose)
she’s like, “we can stop as soon as we get your heart rate up to 127”
-DAMNIT, HEART! PLEASE HURRY UP AND GET TO 127!! (and then i start singing ‘foolish heart’ bc i’m corny like that)
idk how much longer this went on, but thankfully eventually she just cranked up the speed (mercifully, without cracking up the incline) until i fiiiiinally hit 127
so anyway, my biggest takeaway from today is this: if you really want someone to drink more water, just tell them that they cannot drink any water for at least 12hrs. i can’t believe how thirsty i was afterwards. they watched me cool down for 3 minutes (for safety) and i drank two and a half bottles of water, and then i raided the hospital’s mess hall for a couple of cheeseburgers
other than that, today was ironically very skressful (both at work and in my personal life)