Despite what you may have heard about me, I definitely have a heart. Yes, yes, sometimes it can be icy cold, and on occasion it may be perceived as a tad hardened, but I most certainly do have a heart. Unfortunately, however, my heart doesn't seem to be normal - whatever that means.Yesterday I had a very disappointing pre-op cardiac evaluation. See, I have a cardiologist. She's in that big group in Corporate Woods and, despite yesterday afternoon's less than stellar performance by my heart, I was finally convinced that she is really assessing my health in a careful, thoughtful manner. She and I initially met when I had one of my fainting episodes, (which I only seem to have, of course, in public locations with many witnesses), and ended up spending a weekend in the cardiac unit. Believe me, a weekend on the cardiac floor is not nearly as much fun as a weekend in the city with the girls. The food sucks, there's no getting any rest and people are constantly coming into your room and poking at you. Yuck. After three days of this treatment, I was released and monitored for 30 days with no tangible diagnosis other than a malformed chest bone. And I always thought my chest was one of my better features!
Yesterday's failure was the result of my wacky ekg that revealed a heart rate in the 30-40 beats per minute range. Apparently the norm for women is more in the 70-80 beats per minute range. While I'd like to think that I'm the picture of health, despite cancer and erratic heart function and public fainting spells, I guess it would be a bit of a stretch to place myself on par with Lance Armstrong's cardiac performance, huh? Although, seriously, if you saw me climb Krumkill Road hill on my bike, perhaps the comparison would be a bit more believable.
So, here I am, eight days pre-surgery looking for confirmation that my heart is in fact strong and healthy. Since, as the doctor explained to me yesterday, the heart is an electrical unit, any, and all, positive energy is welcomed. To be continued...
Sil, it's okay. You can go public with it. The EKG was just a ruse about how disappointed you were about not meeting me last night.
ReplyDelete(sorry about that btw... I forgot I'd cancelled since they nixed the sake thing, and the wines they were tasting aren't a favorite of mine)
AJ - You are so on to me! I was going to bail last night because I was sporting all those wires and crap, but I was like, whoa - date with AJ. I'm seriously glad that you got the word on the change in wine programs (Joe Carr's wines were wonderful - more to come later) and we will see each other post-surgery at the Joe Armstrong sake/wine thing.
ReplyDeleteYou rock silvia and you are truly an inspiration
ReplyDeleteI am sure you are feeling anxious and frustrated but certainly this will pass and will eventually be behind you. I have suffered from fainting spells as well and doctors thought it was due to some sort of neurological dysfunction - SO - after having a million things stuck to my head and sitting in a room with a strobe light for hours they still could not find anything wrong with me. They passed it off as a peculiar glitch that I have. So you have an abnormal heart I have an abnormal brain - do I see a variation of the Wizard of Oz in our future??? Good Luck, it will all be good! xo
ReplyDeleteI fainted at work a few years ago, and they thought I had a seizure, rushed me to Albany Med, kept me for 3 days with all the wires, tons of tests, bed arms wrapped in towels as I was on Seizure alert, only to release me saying yeah, you fainted. Anxiety was my other middle name for those days and still is whenever I've had to have tests done at the hospital. It will pass and life will go back to the usual fun times. Stay positive!!!
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