![]() My BP dropped below normal and kept falling until the monitor ]no longer read it.īut I can breathe. I barely had time to utter “I feel really weird” when it seemed like someone turned out the lights. Right about then, I turned ashen, and began to sweat profusely out of seemingly ever pore in my body. Pleased with the quick results, the nurses noted my declining BP as it approached pre-test levels. Apparently, my body was digging this new feeling like it was cocaine (ahem…or so I’ve heard). I felt like I could have run a marathon at that point. Nothing hurt and all senses were now on 11. Suddenly, I have blood and oxygen circulating like I was twenty again, and it was marvelous. Within a blink of swallowing the pill, a wave of unusual feelings rush through every part of my body as the nitro dilates seemingly every vein in my body. ![]() After a bit, he orders a nitroglycerin tablet and I take it. He arrives quickly, notching up the expertise in the room and making me feel they’re taking good care of me. Now the nurses paged a cardiologist to examine me. “Let’s give him some water and have him sit up a bit and see if that helps.” T-Minus 2 Minutes. Still no BP change, and now a fourth, and seemingly more experienced nurse, entered the room to join the team. “Let’s give him five more minutes and that should do it,” said the new nurse after checking me out. I chatted freely with the nurses and felt reasonably okay, but my BP was still stuck like a high-revved engine. This abnormal reaction caused a third nurse to come in and consult on how best to get my numbers down so the scan could proceed. But, after 10 minutes, mine had not dropped: it remained high as when I finished the test. The expected BP recovery back to normal after a stress test is about 5-8 minutes. After that, they’d wheel me over to take CAT scan for my “after” glam shots T-Minus 10 Minutes There I’d relax and recover until my blood pressure (BP) returned to pre-test levels. One of the two test nurses then helped me onto the gurney bed beside the treadmill. Despite my legs feeling like rubber, my head light from the exertion, and my lungs working overtime, I finished. Surprisingly, no doubt because I’d been hiking a lot in the preceding six months, I made it to the target point and held for the required time. Sounds easy, but since I wasn’t feeling well, I had concerns whether the stress test would uncover the issue or kill me quickly. This time the approach was to get this 60-something’s heart rate up around 140 for about a minute. The theory behind the test is with a dye injected into your veins, then the CAT scan images before/after the stressing, they can see your good (or bad) “pipes.“ĭespite wishing I wasn’t there, I was grateful how things had aligned and uncovered the issue through my long-time OD physician during a visit to my former Ohio hometown. Back then it felt like the objective was to make me pass out, but in reality only to work my heart rate up to a specific target for a period of time. With my first stress test 4-5 years before, I knew the drill and how “fun” these could be as they wind up your heart rate while on a treadmill cruelly involving varying speeds and slopes. This was not my first rodeo, as they say. The tipping point was the easy hike in Hawaii that felt like a 50-lb. Based on the EKG results and various symtoms during the months before, I knew something was amiss with my heart. I did some light meditation around acceptance until the tech called me in. Arriving early for my stress test in June 2019, scheduled due to a bad EKG the day before, I sat in the waiting area intent on relaxing.
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