DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

It’s official — I have a heart condition. I called my doctor to report my low heart rate. She said, “I’m sure you’re fine. It’s probably nothing. But why don’t you come in to the office for further testing?” If I’m fine, and it’s nothing, why did she want to strap a dozen electrodes to my body and shoot current from one to the next?

But the EKG wasn’t at all painful, probably because it doesn’t actually shoot electricity through one’s body. It simply measures the electricity that’s already there. The worst part of the procedure was the nurse’s haircut; she had a mullet. And, under the white skirt, I believe I caught a glimpse of acid-wash jeans.

EKG stands for electrocardiogram. You might think the abbreviation for electrocardiogram should be ECG, and in fact you can spell it that way if you like, but “EKG” sounds cooler, so that’s what I call it, because appearances are everything, even when you’re laying topless on an examination table under fluorescent lights while an earnest but poorly-coiffed RN glues metal tabs to your chest, with wires running across the room to an old Medusa of a battery charger/arc-welding rig, except it’s encased in that thick pebble-finish plastic that used to be beige but has yellowed to a sort of unpleasantly mucoid smear that screams out “Medical Surplus, $49.95, conductive paste not included”.

I half expected the nurse to shout “CLEAR!” as megavolts of power coursed through my body while my back arched and I bit through the rubber puck she’d stuck in my mouth, but none of this happened, because I wasn’t being defibrillated. My heart may be slow, but it hasn’t quite stopped. I can tell, because I’m still typing.

Anyway it was refreshingly non-traumatic, a nice change considering my age — it seems every time I turn around some MD wants to stick a finger up my butt. (My prostate has a fan club.) Eyeballing the report, which looks like a seismographic recording of a place where, ahh, they have regular but very small earthquakes, my doctor repeated her earlier diagnosis: “You’re fine; it’s probably nothing; but why don’t you go to the lab for further testing?”

I’d be lying if I said I was no fan of needles. The fact is, the mere prospect of getting jabbed in the vein is enough to give me the screaming willies. But I’d been curious about my thyroid, and in a detached way (which is the only way I can manage to think about my thyroid at all without making grossed-out faces and changing the subject) I looked forward to finding out if it was doing the right thing.

I ought to be able to describe the blood test in grisly detail, but I had my eyes closed.

So, a couple of days later my doctor called. “Your thyroid is fine.” She paused. I waited. Surely there was an MRI or spinal tap in my future… but no. The diagnosis is the same now as when I started out: sinus bradycardia. In the absence of other symptoms, or maybe just in my case?, it’s harmless. This was my suspicion all along, but having information is strongly preferable to having suspicions. Also, medical procedures make for great journal entries.