Doctors Appointment

“Mom when is my next cardiologist appointment?” I ask, after my indoor soccer game.

“You are due for one, but why are you asking?’

“When I run a lot I get this sharp pain in my upper left shoulder and I was just seeing if he could check that out whenever my next appointment is,” I explained.

“Well we should get that checked out sooner, sounds sort of serious. We will first just take you to your primary doctor then we will see what he thinks.”

As we do so. The doctor listens to my heart and my carotid artery; he stops and says he hears a really loud sound through my neck. And he was concerned that when I run I could be putting a lot of pressure on my artery since my aorta is malformed. He didn’t want me to run at a soccer game and then have my artery explode from all the pressure I was putting on it. So he made me abandon all physical activities until I could see my cardiologist. Which took a week to plan an appointment; I missed three indoor soccer games and a whole Thanksgiving break of snowboarding. Disappointed as I was and scared that I could possibly never play soccer ever again I go to my appointment on Tuesday.

I walked in and took a seat in the waiting room at Memorial Children’s Hospital and waited to be called back. Soon enough the nurse called back to go receive an ultrasound of my heart. As I lay and watch what looks like a blob on the screen, my heart I hear it pumping. Laying there for an hour having the lady take pictures of all views of my heart I wonder what is normal and what is abnormal. As she finishes taking pictures I am asked to go to the room across the hall to take an EKG which is a electrocardiogram which takes a record of my heart. As I am asked to lie down again, she sticks stickers all over me with wires hooked up to the ends of the “stickers.” I feel like a test rat in a lab being tested for the cure like in the movie I am Legend. When she is done she clicks a button then it’s over with, and takes off the stickers and wires. As the nurse leaves with the machine the doctor comes in with the tests and said, “Well young lady I think you look all good, but I still want to get a stress test on you Thursday so come back in two days.”

As I walk through the doors of the hospital for the second time I see children pass me by with cancer and IVs in their arms. And I think to myself nothing can be as bad as that. I sit once again in the waiting room, when a blond hair nurse comes in and asks me to follow her. As I follower her she brings me into this bright colored room with a treadmill, bike and a large machine that looks like a robot. She asks me a few questions and tells me all that I am going to be doing. First she says “I am going to stick this tube in your mouth with your nose pinned off and you’re just going to breath for me then I want you to take a deep breath and exhale for 5 seconds. I know 5 seconds doesn’t seem that long but, trust me it’s going to feel like forever.”

Giving me the tube to breath in she asks me to take a deep breath and exhale everything I have in my lungs. So I do, it was harder than I expected! Then the nurse said, “Nice job now I am going to hook these ten stickers to your chest with this machine that is attached at your hip connected to the larger machine. Then I am going to stick this patch on your forehead and it will also be hooked up to the machine I have here. Then I am going to stick this tube in your mouth that this head gear is going to hold with your nose pinched off so you have to breathe through it. And lastly I am going to test your blood pressure at the same time so you will have this strap on your arm while bicycling. Go as hard as you can, it will increase the restraint on the pedals the more you go. Most people go for 6-8 minutes but push yourself. Stay between 60 and 70 RPMs.”

As I put on the contraption she puts my head in, I feel like I can’t even move in this. How in the world am I supposed to ride a bike with all of this? I start pedaling like I am in the Tour De France. As the pressure on the pedals increased the harder I was breathing like a fish gasping for water. My mouth was so dry and I couldn’t swallow and I was so hot and my legs were burning from the pressure they had to pedal. I start to slow down and then the nurse starts yelling at me to push it, so I do. I made it to ten minutes and I couldn’t pedal anymore. As I stop the nurse takes the breathing contraption off of me and gives me a glass of water for my desert like throat. I am done I think to myself!! But I had to leave all of the other wires on for ten more minutes until my heart rate slowed down. Ten minutes went by and I ripped off all of the wires and stickers then headed over to take another EKG. But this time they only took pictures of one view of my heart. As that nurse finished up the doctor comes in and says, “It all looks great. I think you even improved from last year’s scores which is rare because over time the aorta tends to become worse but in your case it’s not! I am not sure what that pain is from but if the aorta increases to become worse we will have a x-ray done for your artery, but for now I clear you for doing anything you want. I don’t like making cardiac cripples, but the only restraint is wrestling or lifting weights but other than that I will see you in a year.”

Checking out of the hospital was a relief for me and my mom that I wouldn’t have to miss another soccer game or another snowboarding day again this year, and my life went on!