Guess what? Today I had a Nuclear Stress Test. My doctor felt that as a woman of "a certain age" and after all of last week's excitement, I needed to have a stress test to make certain that my heart was just fine. Now, I know that all is well; but for some reasons, doctors need proof!
It was a very simple thing. All I had to do was sit still, first while the technician took nuclear pictures -- or something equally magnificent -- of my heart muscle at work. She had injected a small amount of a radioactive substance into my veins so that when I lay on the table underneath the gamma camera, it was able to produce images of my heart at rest. Then she took me into the stress test room where rather than walking on the treadmill, I was given a medication that caused my heart to react as if I were actually exercising, causing the coronary arteries to widen and the blood flow to increase.
After that, a second set of images were taken with the gamma camera so that the two sets could be compared to determine whether there were any heart damage or any place blood was not flowing correctly. It was all very simple and although it took about three hours, it was quite an easy thing to do.
It was the actual stressing of the heart that told me something, that gave me information about myself and the experience that I had had last week. When the technician injected me with the medication that would simulate exercise, I felt all of the effects she had told me that I would: cold, shortness of breath, shaking, tears (well, she didn't mention the tears, but I had them) and I felt just as I had felt last week when I went to the Emergency Room. To me, that was very interesting. Although nothing had shown up as being wrong with my heart when I was checked in the ER, I felt the same effects that night as I felt today.
The tech didn't seem too concerned about that and I'm not either. What I have decided is that what I felt the other night was a good reason to go to the ER, as I did feel the same way that I felt today when my heart was working hard. It might have been an overworked heart, but it wasn't. It was some sort of panic attack set off by American Idol. (Well, not really. It was some sort of a fake panic attack that I will recognize next time.) And you know what? After my experience today, I will probably go right back to the ER if I ever feel that way again. I have learned that it might be real. My heart might be working too hard.
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