I've always had confidence in my heart. What I mean to say is, for some strange reason I always felt that no matter what else went wrong, no matter which other organs wound up disappointing me, my heart would go pumping merrily along, reliable and stalwart. As it happens, I was right. My heart was indeed in A-Fib, but no one seemed overly concerned. The one thing they were worried about was whether I might have a blood clot floating around somewhere. Apparently a heart in A-Fib can throw off clots which in turn can wind up in your lung. Not a good thing at all. They took me for a test called a Transesophageal Echocardiagram, or T.E.E. I've had echos done before; they're a piece of cake. Or is it, "they're pieces of cake"? Dunno. At any rate, they're not invasive at all. All it is is a sonogram of the heart. This transesophageal thing, however, was a different story entirely. They shove a camera down your throat. You know how much I love that. First they sprayed my throat with a numbing agent. Then they had me drink some vile concoction to numb me deeper down in my gullet. They assured me that what they were using was enough to keep me from gagging. Wro
ng! The procedure must have lasted about ten minutes; I gagged through the whole thing. Well, I didn't have any clots, thank G-d, so the next step was to zap my heart back into what they call "normal sinus rhythm." That's exactly what they do: they zap you with those paddles you see on doctor shows on TV, where they yell "clear!" before they use them. But they put you out first. They told me beforehand that this works about 90 or 95% of the time. Then they stuck a needle in my arm and next thing I knew, it was over. And it had worked, too! Were things finally looking up?
I've always had confidence in my heart. What I mean to say is, for some strange reason I always felt that no matter what else went wrong, no matter which other organs wound up disappointing me, my heart would go pumping merrily along, reliable and stalwart. As it happens, I was right. My heart was indeed in A-Fib, but no one seemed overly concerned. The one thing they were worried about was whether I might have a blood clot floating around somewhere. Apparently a heart in A-Fib can throw off clots which in turn can wind up in your lung. Not a good thing at all. They took me for a test called a Transesophageal Echocardiagram, or T.E.E. I've had echos done before; they're a piece of cake. Or is it, "they're pieces of cake"? Dunno. At any rate, they're not invasive at all. All it is is a sonogram of the heart. This transesophageal thing, however, was a different story entirely. They shove a camera down your throat. You know how much I love that. First they sprayed my throat with a numbing agent. Then they had me drink some vile concoction to numb me deeper down in my gullet. They assured me that what they were using was enough to keep me from gagging. Wro
ng! The procedure must have lasted about ten minutes; I gagged through the whole thing. Well, I didn't have any clots, thank G-d, so the next step was to zap my heart back into what they call "normal sinus rhythm." That's exactly what they do: they zap you with those paddles you see on doctor shows on TV, where they yell "clear!" before they use them. But they put you out first. They told me beforehand that this works about 90 or 95% of the time. Then they stuck a needle in my arm and next thing I knew, it was over. And it had worked, too! Were things finally looking up?
it is a cool graphic!
ReplyDeleteHey, you...thanks for the comments. Just when I think no one reads this thing and no one cares and no one loves me, you always seem to come through! :)
ReplyDeletethats not how your heart looks when it pumps blood
ReplyDeletebut its a cool graphic anyhow
How does your heart look?
ReplyDeletei think diff parts swell up at diff times, not the whole thing at once. like firstthe top two chambers fill up then the bottom two then the top two again....yikes i am totally forgetting my bio stuff
ReplyDelete