Have you forgotten my 6 word story from this morning or are you still curious? I won’t keep you waiting any longer and I will gladly say that I passed, well kind of. By explaining I need to go back 4 years. First if you were thinking I was taking a academic type test, you were wrong! Sorry no prize for you 🙂 But I was being honest, I was taking a TEST, it was a medical test though not academic. Now rewind 4 years ago to 2012.
I had been having heart palpitations and was getting tired out more easily, so decided that due to our heart history in our family I should be checked out. My pulse also was running higher than normal.
I had a Echo Stress Test scheduled. For those of you not familiar with heart tests this is basically a treadmill test. You all hooked up to a EKG as you walk on a treadmill which gets faster and starts to have a gradual incline. During that time they are taking pictures of your heart to see what the heart is doing as your pulse rate goes up. Sounds fairly simple right? I went into the test confident, for other tests had been coming back normal for me so I really wasn’t worried.
The test started and I walked. A Dr is present along with nurses and they tell you that if you feel chest pain, arm pain, shortness of breath, to let them know and they will stop the test. Within 90 seconds I was pointing to my chest for I could not speak. I grabbed my arm and the test was immediately stopped as they laid me on the table right beside the treadmill and started looking at my heart by a Echocardiogram. Dr. did not like what she saw. My heart was ballooning up, she assumed that there had to be some type of blockage where the blood couldn’t get to my heart. In that 90 seconds of time my heart rate went up to over 180 beats per minute. Heart catharization was ordered as they gave me Nitroglycerin, and my day was DEFINITELY NOT going as planned! A heart catharization is where they go in through your femoral artery in your leg to explore the heart and check for blockages in the arteries.
The good news was that my arteries were 100% clear! So what was causing my problem? They discovered that I had Myocardial Bridging. It is rare and wellll…when it comes to me and medical things, my family wasn’t surprised at all that I had it. The simplest way to explain it is that in normal hearts, (yes now you have proof, I am not normal. Ha!) the arteries are looped over the heart muscles. In my case my heart muscle is looped around the arteries. The cases range from mild to severe bridging. I fell in the category of moderate. With my pulse rate being higher than normal it made the heart muscle constrict and in the medical terminology of a nurse, it squishes my arteries. Which if something is squished its a little hard to let blood flow through it. Hope I am making myself clear.Basically it causes the blood flow to stop, just like there would be a blockage. The Dr put me on a beta blocker to lower my pulse and that appeared to work for the past 4 years.
I had my regular check up not long ago and Dr decided it was time to do another Echo Stress Test. I haven’t been feeling bad other than knowing that my physical stamina isn’t as strong.
Today I did do better than before, but still didn’t exactly pass with flying colors. The Dr that did the test is pretty confident that my Dr will make a change in meds and that should take care of the problem. Perhaps just increase them a little. Its not like I can’t hike, bike, etc.I just have to watch how much I exert myself, no marathons for sure. Walks on the beach are more my style.
I am sure none of you were expecting something like that and honestly I didn’t plan on sharing. Not til my sister responded with a text to me. Yes I have to give her the credit. She texted me back with this when we were talking earlier this week. ” You had 4 years to study for this test, you better pass!”
Don’t want to cause anyone worry, but the more I blog that more I am learning to be honest about the things happening in my life. Especially with people as wonderful as my readers are. Even the parts that I may not like as much. We all have them, different but there.
If you have any questions feel free to ask, will answer them the best I can.
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