August 2007

About a week or so ago, I called my Doc’s office to get my heart results. As most of you already know, I went in for a little poking and prodding because I fatigue when I’m exercising and I sometimes can’t climb steps & talk at the same time without getting fairly winded. (I run, eat healthy, and I’m in good shape — 5’6″ish and only 120-something pounds.) Because the heart and lungs work together as a team, I had to go in for testing on both. Lungs were fine. So, I’d been waiting on the heart results. I called Doc Dee a while ago, and they told me that she was out on vacation. Hence, the no Heart Watch 2007 updates posted on my blogs.

Okay, so, Doc Dee got back from vacation. She called me, and left a message on my machine. Apparently, my heart is “perfectly normal.” I should feel relieved. Right? I should feel settled. And, truthfully, I do. A little bit. I guess the only thing that makes me freaked out a bit is the breathing stuff. If my heart truly is fine and my lungs are great, why do her tests show that I can’t breathe at full capacity? I guess I could go with one of two answers. On the one hand, everyone’s body is different. Maybe mine just doesn’t need as much air and, therefore, my lung capacity is low?

On the other hand, maybe Doc Dee isn’t catching something or she overlooked something in my test results? She’s my general practitioner — not a cardiologist or a lung specialist. And … If I’m being honest … when I originally heard that she was out on vacation, I wanted to scream out: NOW YOU’RE SCREWED, FBC!!! I love my doctor to death. She just kind of, you know, rushes things a bit. And, she knows this. She has apologized on a previous occasion. But, I guess the “rushing” comes with the territory. She’s good at what she does. And, a lot of people want to see her. A lot of people. So, in order to see all of her patients on a given day, she has to be quick. Vacation = backlog. So, I worried that she’d probably go over my results even faster than she would have under normal circumstances.

In any case, this is where I now stand: Doc says things are fine. I feel perfectly fine (as long as I kick it down a notch with running and cardiokickboxing). I could go in for additional testing and/or go get a second opinion. But, I’ve decided against that option for now. After all, this isn’t something that flared out of nowhere. It’s just something that’s been with me for a while now. It hasn’t gotten significantly worse. Or better. If you’ve ever had tinnitus for an extended period of time, it feels kind of like that — something is happening that’s probably not typically supposed to happen, but it’s not anything that’s going to kill or otherwise harm you. Bodies are complex systems, I guess. Has anyone else out there every had a similar situation? Your body acts weird for a bit, but there’s no really identifiable cause?

{ 12 folks got down with the Funky Brown }