This morning, I had a chemical stress test in preparation for my next meeting with my cardiologist in two weeks. Because of my cardiac condition, they do not have me walk the treadmill as the “normal” stress tests are done. Instead, like so many others, I receive an injection that ramps up my heart rate.
Some people describe it as an elephant sitting on their chest. Some say that it takes their breath away. Me? I just felt my heart racing a bit at the beginning.
What they do is take a series of 64 pictures of the heart before the chemical is introduced and after it is injected. The heart lights up where blood flow is adequate and remains dark where blood flow is restricted or not present.
It will be interesting to see what the results of the test show. My only other one was in 2011. I want to see if there have been any changes in the heart’s condition since then. Hopefully, there will be nothing new to show.
Fingers crossed. However, I am taking as good news the fact that the doctor’s office did not call this morning or afternoon to say “come right in”. That’s what happened the first time when they discovered all the damage that a virus had done to my heart years before.
