Thursday, October 23, 2008

Bum Heart

***Blog post disclaimer: Please don't freak out when reading this post. I'm perfectly fine and the doctors just want to take preventative measures.***

I've always known that I have a heart murmur which hasn't been a big deal. Lately I've been super fatigued and have been getting chest pains on and off. So, I've been getting all sorts of neato tests done to see what's going on. On Monday I had a chest x-ray taken. This was to see if I have tumors, heartworm (by the way, I just learned that humans can get heartworm. Eww, right?), mold in my lungs or other funky stuff. Results for that were negative, thank goodness. It would be embarrassing to have heartworm.

Today I've been put on a Holter monitor which is basically a 24 hour EKG test to look at my heart rhythms. I've got 7 electrodes hooked up to my chest to monitor my heartbeat which gets stored on this computer thing for analysis. It is really weird. I've been wearing my down vest all day to cover up the electrodes because I was getting too many questions about what was going on. Plus, with a bunch of colorful wires coming out of my shirt, leading to a little black box, I don't want anyone to think I'm a suicide bomber. Let's hope I don't raise any concern when I go to the elementary school for our program this afternoon.

On Monday I'll get an echocardiogram which is an ultrasound of the heart. Not too sure what that does exactly, but I guess it will be good to make sure my heart isn't pregnant.

I'll keep you posted on all this medical stuff. I'm an eternal optimist, so I really don't think anything is wrong, especially knowing that murmurs run in the family and haven't caused problems until later in life.

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