Oh crap
When I was seven, I had a heart operation. The official term for my condition was a ‘coarctation of the aorta’ or, in real person speak, a narrowing of the main artery from the heart. Well, the last time I had a checkup was 15 years ago and I distinctly remember the doctor saying that there was a slight chance that the problem would return as I got older due to scar tissue but in general I was fine and to go off and have a nice life. So I did.
Well, today I went to see a cardiologist. And now I’m a tad worried. I know that I really shouldn’t be, but this is the list of tests I have lined up in the next month:
* A CT Aortogram and 3D reconstruction (where they inject an xray dye into a vein and create a 3D image of your blood vessels).
* Chest Xrays
* Holter monitoring system of my heart. I gotta wear it around for 24hrs.
* An echocardiogram (echo). An ultrasound of my heart.
That’s BEFORE I go back to the cardiologist. So now I’m broke and, apparently, not as fighting fit as I thought I was. Doc says I have a heart murmur (tell me something I don’t know) and that we may have to discuss whether I take medication to keep my blood pressure down (even tho, to my knowledge, it’s not up).
So I’m a tad worried. Made worse by the little gems of info these procedures provide such as “The chance of a serious life threatening reaction is less than 1 in 180,000″. Is that supposed to be reassuring, coz it’s not.
And I did the really STUPID thing looking the condition up on the internet. Dumb, dumb, dumb move. I knew it was dumb when I did it, but did it anyway.
Well, the good news is that it’s just as well I don’t really want kids. Because I’m considered ‘high risk’ if I get pregnant.
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I really, really hope that this all goes well for you and the tests give you the reassurance you need. It must be really scary. I’m thinking of you!
It sucks even worse that you have to pay for these tests.
Email me if you’re on Skype - we should try to chat.
Oh my goodness! I can’t imagine how scary & worrying this must be. Good luck with all the test - you’re one of the fittest people I know, so I’m sure they’ll all come back with good results.
Make sure you get a good sleep before you have to wear the 24 hour heart monitor. I had to wear one of these for bood pressure (it pumped my arm up every 15-30 minutes over 24 hours for each reading) and it was damn annoying - hopefully the heart monitoring one is less intrusive