Heart-to-Heart #14: Bradical Mindspew

This week’s Heart-to-Heart features Brad at Bradical Mindspew who saw a cardiologist last Wednesday to check out an exceptionally high heart rate. Brad does a great job describing his stress test experience.

I was first told to take my shirt of and lay down on my side. The lady then squirted a bunch of goo on an oblong device and proceeded to do an ultrasound on my heart. It was quite a trip to be able to see my own heart on the screen next to me. After rubbing the thing around on my chest for a while, she suck some discs to my skin and connected them with some wires to get ready for my stress test. The treadmill started off very slow with very little incline. After a few minutes, though, the pace picked up and the platform got steeper. This trend continued every three minutes until I was running. As I jogged with wires connected to me, I felt like Ivan Drago from Rocky IV only without the muscles and blonde flat top haircut. They told me as I was running that it was going to keep getting faster and more steep until the computer showed my heart rate was over 180 beats per minute. Finally, at the 13th minute, they told me I could stop. Normally, you would walk a little afterwards to cool down. With a stress test, though, they want you to lay down immediately so they can get an ultrasound of your heart while it’s pumping fast. As I did it, I was huffing and puffing big time, and I felt like my heart was going to pound through my chest (a likely normal reaction to laying down with a heart rate at 180). They got their final readings and the doctor came back in to tell me my results.

Brad’s doctors are pretty sure he’s ok but he’ll know more this coming week. All the best, Brad!

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