"When in the course of human events," there will come a time in everyone's life when your friendly cardiologist will utter those fateful words "I think we should get a stress test." This is stated in the same tone of voice as your urologist saying "bend over and hang onto the examining table." (In the service they always told you to "bend over, grab your ankles and spread your cheeks," which, if you think about it, it is impossible to do _ it really hurts your face.)
When I asked my good friend Amos Webster from the "Close Cover Before Striking School of Wordsmanship" what he thought "stress" meant, he pondered a moment and then said "Like, man, it's like bending to a breaking point by external forces." I thought to myself, "Like, this is not for me." (I also thought that the time had come to expand my friendship pool.)
I had "stress" tests before and most of these events had ended with a clean bill of health that makes me wonder how I ever got into the position of requiring quintuple bypass surgery in the first place.
These tests had been the kind where you walk on a treadmill while wired up to monitors that never say or beep a word, they just silently scroll out paper with squiggly lines that means something to someone. When I tried to decipher it, it reminded me of poor penmanship or a doctor writing a prescription.
They tell you that they will vary the speed and tilt of the treadmill, thereby creating a stressful situation, and when you think you can go no farther, they will stop. Don't believe them. When you are gasping and panting and you can barely utter the words, "I've had enough, I can't go any farther," they will keep you going for a few more minutes. I don't know why they do this. I always thought they did this to see if you would go into cardiac arrest and then they could try out the new defibrillator.
One time, I had a stress test where the doctor and nurse were admiring the nice sharp "firing" of my heart when a secretary came in to remind the doctor that he was already 10 minutes late for a lecture he was supposed to be giving.
I remember his exact words, "Let's cut to the chase," when I noticed that the treadmill was changing from flat to an ever-increasing incline. All of a sudden I had the mental picture of me running up the face of Mount Rushmore (Lincoln's Nose) or the final 100 meters of Mount Everest.
I was told to "breathe through your nose," which was impossible because I had already sucked my upper lip into my nostrils in an effort to get more oxygen into my system. My legs felt very heavy. I was definitely running out of steam. I gasped, "That's it." The doctor didn't hear me because he was reading his lecture notes. "I think I'm gonna die," I moaned. "Just another minute," the nurse intoned.
At the end of 20 seconds of that minute I thought I saw white light, pearly gates and two escalators, one going up, one going down. "This is it!" Suddenly the slope changed and the treadmill slowed. I just hung onto the support bars and dragged my toes. "We'll have the results in a couple of days," I was told. I never heard from them again.
So, when my friendly cardiologist told me I needed a stress test, I had memories to help me along the road to "bending to a breaking point by external forces." My cardiologist smiled and said "It will be a chemical stress test and all you have to do is lie there." Lying is my specialty so this was going to be a walk in the woods.
The instruction sheet that was given to me revealed that I would be getting certain medications (Persantine or Dobutamine, which vaguely sound like Greek actors), which will be injected into my body to create the chemically induced stressful situation, and then I would be getting a shot of a radioactive tracer. (Thallium or Myoview.)
At the bottom of the sheet were the following words, "Avoid prolonged contact with children and infants as well as pregnant women for 24 hours after the test."
"Why?" I asked.
I was told "Because you will be RADIOACTIVE."
"Hey," I thought, "this might just be fun _ I might just glow in the dark."
We arrived at the hospital on time for my appointment at 07:30 hours and were escorted into a room by "Lovely Lynda" who told me to remove my shirt and "bare my chest." She proceeded to shave the hair from my upper torso and then affixed disks that would hold the electrodes that would monitor my heart functions.
Lynda then gave me a hospital gown that actually reached below my knees. With very few exceptions I have always gotten gowns that ended at mid-navel, which left my "nether regions," exposed to wind and weather erosion. (In my prime a gown that ended mid-navel would have had crowds standing in reverent awe but now they just point and laugh. Aging can be a very humiliating experience.)
The next step was the phlebotomist who knew her stuff, after which I was intravenously dripped and injected. Then it was time to sit around and wait for all the "goodies" to flow through my system. In the waiting room I met "Nick" who was also being tested. We both agreed that the phraseology of stress-test should be changed, because the words alone created pre-examination stress.
Up to this point everything was going just fine. I was told by my cardiologist that the chemical-induced stress test has very high correlation to a treadmill test and in some cases is even better. Then came the time for "picture taking."
Chuck is the smiling radiologist who will put you at ease with his friendly demeanor. He told me that the next test might cause me a "little discomfort" because I will need to hold my arms over my head for 18 minutes while the "machine" takes pictures of the radiated fluids coursing through my body. Chuck said I could hold onto the top of my head, my hair, or my pillow to help me "hold that pose." As I tried to lay flat on the table and extend my arms over my head I heard ominous crunching noises _ I don't think that I bend that way anymore.
Well, the first five minutes were a piece of cake. Then my arms started to get tired so I tried to move them just a little bit to ease the growing pain. (I did this very slowly so Chuck wouldn't notice.) I was resting my hands on my head when in the 10th minute of my 18 minute ordeal I started to get cramps in my arms and shoulders. It was about this time that I gave serious thought to ripping out my hair in fistfuls to take my mind off of the pain in my arms and shoulders.
As I was laying there the machine taking the pictures was moving perceptually slowly from right to left. I started to will it to move faster. It gave a jump. I focused all my will power to make it jump some more. It mocked me! Just about the time when I couldn't take any more I heard Chuck say, "We're done for now. That wasn't so bad, was it?" If I could have gotten my hands down I might have choked him.
I was told that I could go and have something to eat but to be back in 45 minutes. We went to the cafeteria where they were serving hot croissant sandwiches with a sausage patty and fried egg. It was not on the diet plan. The hell with the diet.
After breakfast there was one more nine-minute stint on the picture machine, but this time I only needed one arm on my head while the other could take a nap.
As time goes by, one would think that a nation that can put a man on the moon and space junk on Mars could invent a machine where you would not have to hold your hands over your head for 18 minutes.
P.S. For your information I did climb under the covers that night to see if I glowed in the dark.
I didn't.
Drat!
Henry Geerken is a three-time NYSUT award-winner writing humorous articles addressing retiree and senior citizen concerns. Geerken also writes for Sail-World, World Cruising Newsletter, regarding his many humorous sailing episodes through the years. He can be reached by e-mail at hgeerken@stny.rr.com.
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