TheBanyanTree: Stress. Test.

[Linda]

As I drop my son off at school, yesterday morning, I kiss him on the
cheek and say, "Wish me luck."

"For what?"

"Stress test!"

"Stress test? You oughta go through the roof on that one!"

I beat him with my gloves and go on. Been trying to get this done
for a couple of weeks, but some trouble with my legs have postponed
it. As it was, the cardiologist and I discussed the non-treadmill
method of the stress test, since neuromuscular disease makes my legs
unreliable and prone to injury. I've spent the better part of 2
weeks this month off of my feet with problems, which have been
escalating over the past year.

The routine is that I drive to K's office, where he then drives me to
my appointments downtown, a few blocks away. This eliminates the
usual Siberacuse necessity of climbing over snowbanks. There are no
snowbanks, this year, and I confess that I have said "Global warming
rocks, sometimes!" on a couple of occasions. I don't really think
global warming rocks, but I am thankful for a mild winter, this
year. I've always loved the snow and mostly lived in the right
places for it, currently, a place boasting the largest snowplow in
the world, but the last few years,something has changed. I am cold
all of the time. I shiver. I wear gloves to bed some nights to warm
my icy fingers. Finally, a switch has flipped and I hear my mother's
voice coming out of my own mouth.

"Oh, no! Snow!"

or

"I hate to drive in the snow!"

I don't really hate driving in the snow, I hate having the wind and
snow blowing sideways get in my face and .... wreck my hair. I know
it is vain. I don't even wear make-up 99% of the time, but...I have
finally found a cute haircut that I love and I don't like to have to
mess with it after having already messed with it to make it look
nice. That and some Badger Balm are my beauty routine, these
days. Those and a colored chapstick for Sundays.

K drops me off at The Hill Cardiac Center for my next set of
procedures, the first set having been an EKG and an echo cardiogram,
indicating that things look okay, but the inside wall of my heart is
slightly thickened from lifelong borderline high blood pressure. My
blood pressure is now down, thanks to a new medication, and
reportedly, this will return to normal. The *real* first procedure
was cardioversion in the emergency room after a dynamic episode with
Atrial flutter a few weeks ago and a very unpleasant ride in an
ambulance. I awakened with pressure in my chest and my heart
vibrating like a tambourine on speed, so I looked up what to do on
the net, took aspirin and we called 911.

My assigned cardiologist is Dr. Davidenko, as in "I am from DRUSSIA,
my dahlink." While I waited for him to arrange for the cardio
version, we listen to the people next to us. The old gentlemen's
doctor finally arrives and he asks "So, doctor, what is wrong with
me, aside from being young and handsome with a devil may care
attitude?" We cover our mouths and muffle our laughter. Turns out
he has pneumonia and no, they are not letting him go home. They are
not letting me go home, either, they say. "You've figured out you're
staying, right?" asks my nurse. "No," I tell him." I have never been
to an emergency room, before. So, I lead a sheltered life.

Dr. Davidenko comes back to explain cardioversion to me. He says
that they will put me under anesthesia and administer an electrical
shock to restore my heart's normal rhythm. I will be fine and able
to go home, which means...I can snuggle in bed with my husband
instead of having to be awakened every couple of hours to have my
blood pressure taken. Although I am a little worried about this, the
alternative is staying for a few days, taking medication to restore
things and then having cardioversion, anyway, if the medication fails
to do the job.

I am taken to a small room and followed by a cardioversion
machine. The nurse peels the backing off of two large pads imbedded
with metal strips like the kind one sees in old alarm systems. One
goes on my chest, one on my back. The anesthesiologist arrives and
asks for blankets for my arms. He lies the folded blankets across my
chest and rolls my arms in them.

"This is to protect your arms," he says.

"Are they going to flail around?" I ask.

"I didn't say that!" he answers.

"Or," I ask, "is this the budget version of a straight jacket?"

"It *is* shock therapy we are here for, right?"

A moment later, someone says, "Count backwards from 100." I laugh
because I never make it to 97 1/2 and before I know it, I am
awakening, feeling pleasantly inebriated. Dr. Davidenklo leans over me.

"Cardioversion went very well, very fast," he said. "You will be
feeling a leedle ddrunk for a while and then you can go home. Come
see me at my office." He gave us his card, which K treated with
great respect for a few days and wouldn't even let me hold onto until
he appointment gets made. There are burn marks on my skin from the
electricity.

Fast forward past the EKG and ultrasound, which were uneventful,
barring the echo cardiogram technician unloading all of her holiday
angst, but, hey. People always end up telling me their life stories
and problems, why should she be any different? She is right about
that brother of his and should not return his calls and get sucked
into giving him more money. He should get a job.

Once in "The Hill," as it is called, I go up to the 3rd
floor. Wow. Nice place. BIG. Carlos, my nurse, takes me behind
The Doors and through a maze of hallways until we reach "Nuclear," as
it is called. Here, Carlos IVs me up and sends me out to the waiting
room where I watch Diane Sawyer prance around in very high
high-heeled boots. The waiting room is full of men. Big men. Big,
stocky men with their arms folded across their chests. On TV, they
say that today is D-day. You must mail your packages and cards,
today. I count backwards from Saturday, figuring how long it will
take for my packages to get to New Hampshire. I have an extra day,
maybe 2, unless the crush re-routes the mail to Portland,.
first. Better do it tomorrow.

A petite lady I heard called "Susan," wearing a brown short-sleeved
floral-print blouse stands in front of the television. She must not
be from around here, wearing short sleeves in the dead of winter, not
to mention standing in front of the television in a room full of
grim-looking men.

"Hello, everyone," she says.

The room offers a collective, murmuring grunt.

"What are we watching?"

"Diane Sawyer," I answer.

She sits down and holds out her IV'd arm.

"I'm such a wimp," she said. "And I'm a smoker and I don't
jog." She is very anxious.

"It will be okay," I hear myself say. What do I know? She could
drop dead on the treadmill and here I am telling her she will be
okay. What if she believes me and is not okay? I would feel
responsible for something or other. Better keep my mouth shut and
save myself any possible self-recrimination. I will forgive myself
the one "It will be okay."

The man across from us tells us how his brother was on the treadmill
and told the nurse that it was too much for him, so she speeded it
up. He told her it was awful, he was having a problem and she
speeded it up even more. Finally, he keeled over. Doctors came
running from out of the woodwork, like roaches. The nurse believed
him, then.

Hmmm....I am thinking. I never had trouble walking hard and in fact,
it was my activity of choice until my legs betrayed me. I wouldn't
be walking on the treadmill, I told them. I am going to be injected
with something to stress my heart.

It's my turn to go in for preliminary pictures. Twenty-five minutes
in an "open" tube where they do a cat scan, I think. MRIs are loud,
as I recall. This was quiet. Do not move, they say, or we will have
to start over. Totally over. No coughing? Well, if you have
to. Don't try to hold it. Will it make me vibrate if I hold
it? Yeah. It will.

That's over and back out to the little waiting room where now Regis
and Kelly are on. Kelly talks about how she is too late for
Christmas and doesn't have a gift for her husband. Previously, their
gift to each other was the gift of not having to give a gift to take
pressure off of them, but her husband recently said, "You know what I
want for Christmas?" and she, noting that they don't give one another
gifts, ignored him and now she can't remember what he wanted, but she
knows he really, really wants it and is expecting it and it's too
late for her to get it because she knows her schedule and she will
not be ready for Christmas in time.

I think of my unwrapped presents and undecorated tree with an
anemic garland flung up against the half-empty creche on the
mantel. I hear my name. I follow the person who called it and
find myself in a huddle with another nurse. They both look at me
and look at one another. They are puzzled and bewildered.

"You called me?"

"Oh. No, I was talking to her." Nurse 1 points to nurse 2 wearing a
tag with my name on it. I walk back out past all of the patients
undergoing some sort of torture to the waiting room, which, to me,
seems sort of what a waiting room to heaven, namely, purgatory, would
be like. It's not uncomfortable,. but it's nothing to write home
about. No carpet on the floor. Bright overhead lights. If this
were heaven, there would be marble floors with oriental carpets,
luxurious chaises with snuggly throws and pillows, books, tea,
companions I have chosen, myself, proper lighting and a killer
view. And a veranda.

Susan tells us all that her husband died 5 years ago from a massive
heart attack in the living room of their home. He'd had chest pain
for a while and just 2 days before, told a co-worker, "I have to go
to the doctor." He never made it.  One man, Joe, has a bit of an
Italian accent. He tells me why should he a-go to the doctor? He
a-go to the a-doctor and then he-a find-a trouble. I tell Joe that
not knowing about trouble doesn't mean that it's not there or that it
will go away. Shut up, I think. This poor man needs no advice from
me, a rookie. "What-a the hell?" Joe says. "I tell-a my wife,
that-a surgery almost *kill* her. No more-a surgery."

They take Joe away. Susan in short-sleeves tells me how she had an
Italian boyfriend, once. He was an alcoholic. He wouldn't
work. She bought him cases of vodka and was about to get a 2nd job
to support his lazy carcass when she thought, "What am
I doing??" Instead of vodka, she bought him a one-way ticket and
tricked him into going to the train station by inviting him out to
dinner.  It would have to be her taking him out because he would
never consider taking her out, she says.  He went with her to
dinner. At the station, he took the ticket and got on the train.

"I had no idea it would be so easy, " she said.

A nurse interrupts this interesting story and takes me to a
curtained cubicle and sets me up on the tall table they have you lie
down on. I have 3 nurses. One petite, heavy-set nurse with my name
on her tag, a tall guy in navy and a robust RN training for this
job. He wears scrubs with an outdoor scene on them. He used to jump
out of airplanes for work, so he is surprised to find that nursing is
his passion.

Jumping-guy knows my nuerologist, Dr. Jubelt and begins to tell me
what an incredible doctor he is. He debriefs me on my nuero-angst,
in a chatty way. We talk medications, etc. I tell him they give me
prozac to manage the fatigue. It's very helpful. They wanted to
give me amantadene, which is the medication used in the film
"Awakenings," based on truth. I didn't think I needed to be *that*
stimulated. What would I do with all of *that* energy? If those
people awakened, would I become vividly psychic? Would my feet touch
the ground?

They nurse in navy blue explains the treadmill situation and I tell
him that we aren't doing that. he says that the doctor wants to see
how far I can go. I say that us not what the doctor and I discussed,
that I have a neuromuscular disease, stressing my legs is a problem
and I am not, repeat NOT going to risk injury. Now, he is listening
to me. He tells the new nurse, Jumping-guy, the percentages of
something or other, treadmill vs. injection. Thus and such
percentage, this. Another percentage, that.

"And the remaining percentage?" I ask. "Die?"

They tell me how many people die, which annoys me. I ask them which
medical shows they watch. None, says Jumping-guy. He doesn' have
cable. "I watch 'House,' I tell him. My doctor says she watches
'Gray's Anatomy." They think this funny.

They call in a Physician's Assistant while they set me up for the
injection. I will have 6 minutes of discomfort, where my chest and
throat will feel tight and hurt. It ain't childbirth, I think and we
start. My breathing becomes labored and I feel pretty
strained. They keep telling me that everything is normal. My blood
pressure is excellent, My oxygen level is excellent. My heart beats
faster and faster and my chest heaves and in my head, I try to go to
a happy place, but am rudely pulled back by a strange, growing
pressure in my chest. My head feels like it is coming off.

"Uh............." I hear myself say.

"Cough, cough! Cough!!" they all order me. This can't be good, I
think. It feels pretty awful. Things settle down, a little. They
tell me only one more minute. I think, a minute is long when you are
waiting for an eBay auction to end. Will this seem that long,
too? It does. Longer.

They sit me up, take "hot" radioactive blood out of my arm and send
me off to get coffee, which I haven't been allowed since AM Sunday
morning. It is a beautiful, sunny day.

I wonder why I had to cough.