My Heart Is Good

Well, I finally had the cardio stress test. Thank goodness everything is okay. The test itself was so not like what I expected it to be, like what you see in the movies. You always see (well, I’ve always seen) a person just a run’n and run’n away on a treadmill, for like hours (several minutes, at best) and they’re a sweat’n buckets, and they are all exasperated and near out of breath, but I didn’t have to run for that long. I only ran for maybe 2-3 minutes (shoot, it was probably less) and I never broke a sweat.

Now that I think about it, maybe I came up with my idea of what a cardio stress test was going to be like from watching “The Incredible Hulk” when I was a kid. I think I thought you had to go green, or something like it, like Dr. Bruce Banner did, in order to figure out if your heart was truly stressed.

The fact is, most of the cardio stress test consisted of the nurse using the ultrasound machine to get a look at (a picture of) my heart. As benign as that sounds, getting an ultrasound of one’s heart…turns out, for me, not so much.
It started out with the nurse spreading a dab of jelly-ish goo onto various areas of my chest (different dabs within about a 4” radius from the center of my chest) to get a base reading (take initial pictures). The nurse instructed me to lay this way or lay that way (mostly sideways), then just a little more this way, and so on. Then the nurse pressed her ultrasound doo-hicky thing (the whatsa-dooz-it that takes the images) against my chest, wanding it up and down, then sideways, basically everywhere she'd put the jelly goo. That was fine. Benign. Total cinch.

Then the doctor came in. We exchanged hellos. He asked me all his cardio-stress-test doctory type questions. I answered. Then up on the treadmill I went. Everything is still fine. After my non-sweat-breaking saunter was complete, I laid back down on the table where the doctor, himself, could now push the ultrasound wand around on my chest for a minute or two. Still fine. Then, the doctor was gone. He probably left the room because he knew what was coming.

The ‘not fine’ was next. Next came the 5-8 minute interval where, while trying to get at a particular angle (image) of my heart, the nurse pressed down, really hard, on the skin at the base of my left breast. Okay, it was my boob. She was pressing into the base of my boob as though the boob wasn’t there. (Yeah, yeah, I’m not stacked, but I’ve still got boobs…) She just kept pushing in, and re-adjusting, trying to get the image she wanted, and it hurt. Like hell.

Maybe I just have sensitive boobers, but I kept unconsciously pulling away from the pain. Finally, after my body recoiled from her, for about the seventh time, that was when I consciously realized what I was doing (preserving my left breast from total annihilation) and I looked at this nurse chick (who I thought before was perfectly nice but was now was now questioning her tactics), and I asked, “Um? Does this usually hurt most women? I mean, do they feel such pain at the base of their breast?” And then, in case she wasn’t completely clear on what I was trying to convey: Hello!? You’re smashing the crap out of my bump, chick!, I said, Because that really hurts.”

“Some women, yes,” she answered me, casually, as though it was old hat for her. Just another day at the office making mashed potatoes out the bottom of an unsuspecting boober. Then she explained, “We need to press hard because we’re trying to get the image of your heart beyond your rib.”

Oh? I thought. Is that what that immovable hard thing is that you are pushing my boob into? That would explain it. Still, couldn’t you have warned me that that you were going to pin my innocent tater against my rib in a cage match? I would have braced myself, woman-ed up, knowing that my rib was going to win. Then I thought, man, if this is any indication of how a mammogram is going to feel, I am not going to like that either. The mamo-machine is going to win that one, too.
Ah, well, I’m relieved just the same. Left boob pain or not. At least now I know if I don’t get to knock it out the way I want to, I can go for a run and alternatively relieve some stress. So, with a clean bill of health I came straight home and I did some sit-ups.

No, I didn’t. Came straight home and ate a piece of greasy-ass pepperoni pizza and didn't pick all the pepperoni slices off this time. It was just one piece, and the pizza had been in my freezer for a while. (I've been working my way through, one piece at a time, this whole frozen pizza for the last 8-weeks. I still left behind half of the pizza.) What I am essentially trying to say is that for the first time in four months, I, being completely sober, not buzzed or hung-over, deliberately ate something bad.

Why eat bad? Because I was elated by the news that my heart is fine, but I was pissed off at the other news I got and decided to feed the pain away. You know, I was emotional eating. I wanted to eat my way to happiness, and/or eat my way away from pissed-off-ness.

It didn't work. I got nauseous as hell from all the grease, cheese, and meat on the pizza. Turns out, for me, apparently I have to be tipsy and/or hung-over in order not to notice how the comfort/mood food is affecting me. Sadly, while I would never advocate bad eating, that scenario provides strong evidence that there is one benefit to eating crappy more often, that is rather than only eating like crap on the rare occasions when one is drink'n it up or suffering from the drunk-it down. It’s like training, the more you eat badly the more practice your body has for dealing with the mood food. It knows you are going to put it through it, so it gets its gloves on.

It should be noted that I am one of the healthiest eaters I know. I'm not bragging. I'm complaining.

Remember? I'm the girl with the crappy genetics. Given that my ass and arteries seem to have the same reaction to my food choices, I really don't have the luxury of not eating good. So, I don’t diet. It's a lifestyle.

I've been eating as healthy as possible, adopting rabbit like habits (more and more and more), since I was about 13 years old. Indeed, when one realizes that the ol' family genes have given many of their family members heart disease and high blood pressure as well as bountiful guts, double chins, and plentiful thighs, oh my, one tends to go to the greens and to the fruit, and to supplement with the low fat/fish proteins. Yes, my genetics, and the scary running-the-stairs-at-the-beach episode where my heart got all pressure-ie and I became so nauseous I wasn’t sure I could drive myself home, would be the reason for the precautionary measure—the cardio stress test. I’ve been running, flat ground and stairs, on and off since I was in the 2nd grade. What happened that day at the beach had never happened before and, frankly, it freaked me out.

And, on I go… Where the genetics are concerned, I don't, as they say, gain five pounds just by looking at a slice of pepperoni pizza, with every bite I am facing diabetes, higher blood pressure, and, possibly, a heart attack. Both my parents had heart attacks in their early 50s.

In case you are wondering, in my heaven all the things that taste divine aren't going to be so evil for my body. F’n earth stinks that way. I just want to eat, man.
So when the doctor says, “Your heart looks good. No scar tissue, but I am concerned about your cholesterol.” And then goes on to inform me that my bad cholesterol number is now higher than it was a year ago, that sucks!

Really? Higher? Worse than a year ago when I was already eating good? Sure, I was still eating low fat meat/fish and low fat dairy regularly, but I was eating good. To deal with this news then, the too-high cholesterol, I’d already made the switch to go mostly vegan, almost raw. (Gawd, I miss cheese!) And now the cardiologist is telling me that my bad cholesterol is even higher than before?

Man, can my genetics just go get stuffed and go for a swim with a pair of cement shoes on? Sure, sure, he also said what the last doctor said, that my good cholesterol number is great. Yeah, Yeah, I’m an over achiever. Great. Thanks.

But come on. What else am I supposed to do for my bad cholesterol? I’m starting every day with a 250 calorie mixed-berry, almond milk, and cinnamon smoothie. I’m having an apple or a banana an hour later right before a salad for lunch. A salad, I might add, that is comprised of red-pepper and papaya dressing, shredded carrots, celery, garbanzo beans (and or black beans, or white beans, or whatever beans), and a dash of tahini sauce. Then, oh kill me, I have another banana and a small handful of almonds as a snack an hour or so before I have my last meal of the day. A meal usually made up of a bus load of veggies, sometimes some whole wheat pasta, and I add a non-animal protein, like seeds, or nuts. (I already read that as long as you get all the calories you need with fruits and veggies that your body synthesis the amount of protein you require.)

I’m automating, eating good. I am doing it right by the standards of all the health books and all the nutritional requirement needs I’ve read and researched. Sigh. So what up, man?!!!

But, again, let’s focus on the good. I now have the doctor’s approval to exercise again. I may not be on the do-it team yet, but at least now I know doing it won’t kill me. (Ha! I never thought that!)

Oh, and we’re now counting what I hope to be 45 days to normal. Having started back on the BC, I am hoping my hormones get back into line. Just 30 days to go. Of course I could be going through early menopause and that’s the reason I am so emotionally weird-ed out lately, and thus there’s no hope for me. But that’d be okay. Then I’d have an excuse to be more interesting: menopause hormones. (Yes, that’s how I am putting it, these little mood swings. They’re making me interesting.)

So...my heart is big and I now know it’s strong, too, for now. This is a very good thing.

Keep being fabulous.