U da Bomb

What a day.

I had an appointment at the St. Boniface Hospital today. All I knew for sure was that the test had something to do with my heart, which my doctor wanted to check out because of my fainting spell last summer. When he was telling me he wanted me to go for the test he said "Holter Device" and when I phoned the hospital to schedule it I was directed to the Stress Test lab, so in my head I was imagining being hooked up to a machine while I got my heart rate going on the treadmill. So this morning I decided to wear my yoga pants, sports bra, t-shirt and runners. Even if I was wrong about the running thing, I was confident that I just looked "fun and sporty".

I was wrong about the running thing.

The Holter is a device that records every beat of your heart on a tape recorder through seven electrodes affixed to your chest and torso. I removed my top and the cardiac technologist scratched my skin with what I can only guess was fingertip bits of sandpaper.

"And now I am going to rub those spots with alcohol," she said. Fun.

After she scratched and burned me, she placed the seven electrode disks, taped them, and connected all the attached wires to another cable that looked like the wiring required for hooking a trailer up to the back of your vehicle. All this connected to a device, about the size of a cell phone, that I have to wear on my hip for 24 hours. At this point I had to bite my tongue, my lip, and the inside of my cheek to keep myself from laughing. Even after I left the lab I wanted to burst out into a fit of giggles because all I could think was that I must look like a suicide bomber. Can you imagine if I went to the airport today and tried to board a plane? If I had a blind date?






I went home and changed into work clothes, including a cowl neck sweater that came the closest to being able to hide the electrodes. Because two of them were placed just under my collarbone though it was impossible to completely conceal the device and I felt rather self conscious about it.

On Saturday when I was on the treadmill I got a cramp in my left shoulder which escalated later on into burning pain. I had suffered this pain before and tried massage therapy for relief but was never fully satisfied with the results. On Monday I decided I would check into chiropractic. I phoned a place up and made the appointment for Tuesday after work, not realizing at the time that I would be going with my kamikaze pilot getup on. I also went to a weights class on Monday night at the gym with Amara and was surprised to find that the exercise actually helped a great deal.

The chiropractor did some basic assessments and asked me about my pain and my exercise habits. He concluded that I was protecting my left side a fair bit but would need X-rays to complete his diagnosis. Since I was wired up we agreed that I should come back later for those. I was fine with all of this until he said that he wouldn't recommend I do any running or bouncing around exercises until he had me realigned.

No more running? No more Zumba dance? Could the Holter device detect a breaking heart? I know there are other low-impact ways to exercise but I finally found something that works that I love. If you had told me ten years ago that one day I'd be pouting about not being able to run I'd have told you to take a run out of town.  I can't quit now. No way. I'll put up with the pain, but I'm not going to stop strengthening my heart and pushing myself to the limit.