They said the hospital stress test wouldn’t hurt. It didn’t; it almost killed me. Potential heart issues, old man walking a treadmill ‘til you pass out’ or have a heart attack, almost true. Defib paddles standing by, ‘Code Blue’ cart ready to roll. Seeing them gives me hope I could live if I die.
Talk about everlasting glory, medical imaging has it all!
Nuked up double dose radioactive for three days. Don’t breastfeed, (I’ll miss that one) or stand near pregnant women and stay away from children you’ll sterilize them for life. And, oh yes, you can’t travel on public transport. Airports will arrest you as a terrorist until proven, showing, “It was just a test”. Don’t carry anything with a sharp point (pens excepted) you’ll be deported to the Congo and eat bananas the rest of your life.
With trepidation I note the dawning-sun sign from God, (appointment at 7:00 AM) the elevator’s not working, I take the stairs. Heart pounding, race-horse, Kentucky Derby finish, last push. I approach the reception area, take a number, get called, register and take a seat. Everybody’s staring at everyone else “Am I in as bad of shape as that guy over there?”
Blank stares of (mostly) men waiting a sentence of death, or eyes closed pretending to be dead, sitting bolt upright in shorts and sneakers. Is this all we’ve got to work with?
Arriving at the ‘Boneyard Audition’ everyone gathered nervous, trying to look confident, one patient processed through the mill twenty left to go. No coffee for two days, blurred vision, mind in a fog. Men wearing pale skin with pride, I’m retired, don’t go out anymore. Protruding bones, thin skin, round men’s snow-white-legs dangling below shorts. Too long up-the-leg make wrong socks for sneakers.
The next appointment listening for the sound of the guillotine pop in the “Mr. Jones” closed nuclear medicine injection room. On the door open, we peer in for a preview, no screaming in pain or blood on the floor. The nuclear delivery technologist, feeling upbeat gives me hope. “Mr. Webb.”
Nuclear medicine is a quiet sport; you can’t play if you’re not well-dosed with a drug, which is the opposite of professional sports.
The technologists don’t have names on their uniforms. Should I be worried?
Two floors and four rooms of tests, a nurse jabs me with an intravenous needle, a team of nurses working different floors sticking multiple ECG stickers to the hair on my chest, across my pouted stomach and tender sides. Wired ready to go to Mars. Waiting for a blast-off. Nurses expressing a sigh of relief ripping them off my chest (if joy, we cringe). Ripp! Yowzers! What have I got myself into?
Radioactive tracer is double-dip, one before the first gurney layout and one after you’ve given up survival and thrown caution to the wolves. Waiting areas tight cramped feet to the hall wall. Pressure building, nowhere to run, after all, “this is a stress test.” Everyone laughs their nervous laugh.
Apology offered and accepted as I step over my fellow sacrificial lambs on the way to the next test. There’s more than one stress to test. The test doesn’t include the stress of a sleepless night, an hour’s drive at 6:00 AM, nothing to eat for hours. No morning wake-up brew is a heart-beater in disguise. Two days, no coffee is enough to kill a grown man and drive him into full whine. (Bottle of…)
A lot of waiting, bored to full zombie, brain numb waiting two bouts of hidden magnets circling me while lying supine fed into a whirling machine. The soft-touch treadmill shows no mercy for the weak-kneed and short of breath. Final nuclear injection, “Just ten seconds more.”
Old-school patients, phones not in sight, no books opened to read. Surprise to us we didn’t know there’d be four tests at 15 minutes each in five hours of waiting! Good news: Young people don’t need a stress test; being young brings enough stress.
“You can wait here,” they say and sit us back to the wall. The pandemic killed doctor’s magazines to give boredom full purchase and medical anxiety a place to call home. I miss them. You have 90 minutes until the next test. I tried sleeping chin-to-chest airplane style. Didn’t work, no mouth-open drool so there’s that. Talk about amping up the stress to ten in dead silence before taking pictures of my invisible heart beating.
All men, most my age (old) are apprehensive to hear their news, “You’ll be bedridden within the month.” Me dying (literally) for a snack. Do I need more stress, if so, bring it on. One guy is sweating in air-conditioned circumstances. He needs to smoke a cigarette big time. Hunger pangs growl, coffee deficit, you get a break to find (or eat your brought, lunch box breakfast) in the lobby at mid-test.
This is where it gets scary. They never take the intravenous needle out of your arm; it’s taped on so you can look around to see how many radioactive patients are walking the main lobby and sitting in the waiting areas.
There’s enough nuclear material here to build a good-sized bomb. Oppenheimer would be apologetic. Airport security has good reason to search us out and send our radioactive butts into a land populated by Muslims looking for a solid nuclear connection.
Do the many visiting people in the lobby and those attending with their spouse in the cardio medical imaging area know they will glow in the dark too? I think not. No warnings posted: “This is a radioactive zone, you will lose your teeth, hair and be wearing a diaper before you die.” Cancer patient chemo holds the same warnings so you know you’re in trouble if we’re following their lead.
Anxious waiting for the results. Have I backed the grim reaper from my door or should I invite him in for my last goodbye? One slice of the scythe…
Shoveling snow is off my bucket list, heart pounding sex gone from life’s equation. Don’t go shopping with the wife you could die from strain and cash-in before you cash-out. Family Feud is on endless re-run, I’ll start there. Watching rerun TV from twenty years ago is prelude to the end of life.
Don’t stress, confess. You did the best you could with what you had and left it there. Life is a terminal condition, everyone dies. “What Me Worry?” Alfred E. Neuman.
Well fellow patients, my advice is to enjoy life while you still can. If there’s a stress test pinpointing a medical intervention looming on your horizon, I offer my experience to give understanding to the process and hope by making the serious less anxiety ridden with this light-hearted approach might help. Anything that brings, we the sacrificial lambs to wag our tails reborn is respite from the health scare norm.