or 6:53 and holding 

I glanced up at the clock and noticed immediately that they did not correct for Daylight Savings Time. The clock displayed 6:53, and I assumed it was A.M. since my appointment was for 8:00 a.m. But I had been waiting for a while in the room, so the clock must not only be an hour behind, it must be slow.

Looking a bit more closely the clock read precisely 6:53:40. The second hand tried in vain to jump to :41, but each bounce sent it right back to :40. So now I’m just waiting for the isotope to roam around my blood vessels while watching that clock stuck in time like in it’s own version of “Groundhog Day.” I really wanted to go up to it and just flick the second help, you know, help it along. Instead I was as stuck as that second hand.

This all started a few weeks ago during my annual physical, which I already promised I would not bore you with details. There was something on the EKG like Unspecified Events or something like that. Whatever it was it worried my G.P. I talked about my last echocardiagram about two years ago. Then they found a regurgitating mitral valve. That, to me, sounded like a species of small naked mole rats that eat too much and have to upchuck to fit in their holes. My current caregiver obviously did not suffer laymen explanation well so he strongly urged me to see a cardiologist. By strongly urged I mean he set up the appointment right then.

I guess it’s just a fact of life, but my last five doctors have all been younger than me, and the cardiologist probably the youngest of all. This very pleasant young man performed a rudimentary exam while inquiring about my health and stamina. Hearing my glowing report he said “I can’t make you feel better if you are already feeling good.” And with those words he scheduled a stress test.

It’s been 13 years since my last stress test, and I can remember it as vividly as if it happened 12 years ago. Dry razor, electrodes, treadmill, level four, walking, no running, panting, watching the echo. These are the somewhat disconnected memories from that first test, but the physical exertion stands out most.

So I arrived this morning in running shorts, t-shirt and tennis shoes. It’s cool at 7:30 and cooler still in a hospital. What was I thinking? At least I wore my cap.

Lafayette General is not a small hospital. It takes up many city blocks and has been under constant construction since its conception. They’re building a new women and children’s wing now, so naturally admitting is no longer where admitting should be: at the front of the hospital. Instead it’s somewhere inside, and I swear I couldn’t tell you because I only stumbled across it by accident.

But once there admittance was swift. Received my arm band and orders and reported to… wait… nuclear medicine? But I’m here for a stress test. Oh, ok, well nuclear medicine it is – sixth floor.

Exiting the elevator I hadn’t a clue as to where to go, and some kind medically affiliated personnel (I know better than to call any woman in scrubs a nurse) asked if she could help.

“Yes, I’m here for a stress test and I’ve already started.” She smiled, took my orders and led me to the waiting room.

About 15 minutes later I was called and taken through the door marked “Nuclear Medicine/Stress Testing.” I’m still not putting the two together, but that just belies my general lack of any medical treatment beyond Band Aids.

The practioner in there bore a striking resemblance to my nephew, an auto mechanic. But a quick glance at his fingernails showed no grease stains so my comfort level remained high. In my mind I called him J.R., my nephew’s nickname, but he started to look more like a Duane but probably spelled it DeWayne. I was thinking all of this because he told me he was going to insert an IV in the back of my hand, and I was trying to think of anything else but a needle.

He asked if I had a nuclear stress test before, and my mind suddenly filled with images of Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl and The China Syndrome, but that probably was not the same type of nuclear stressing.

“Nope.”

OK, what they do is inject an isotope in the vein, and then image it with a machine. They do this once at rest. Then they work me over on a treadmill, insert another isotope and reimage me again after the activity. Sounds fairly straightforward, right?

Well, the IV in the back of the hand didn’t work so I’m sitting her with this IV apparatus dangling from a vein just below my elbow, upper arm of course and a big bandage on the top of my hand. Yes, it hurt! Whatdaya think?

Now I have to wait for the isotope to work itself through my system, so I’m sitting here looking at the clock valiantly trying to keep its mission. The clock started me waxing philosphically, but I’ll bore you with other details besides those and let you complete your own metaphors.

I hope I’m not breaking any HIPPA laws, but in a curtained area next to me I hear a medic asking a woman if she was OK. Another medic asked something else and the first medic said “It’s bizarre! I just don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it. Ma’am, we’re going to get a glucometer and take your blood sugar. Maybe that’s it.” Now I’m nervous about this isotope and bizarre happenings that might be in store for me.

About 20 minutes has passed, and I’m led to another room.

The room is dominated by a machine that is comprised of a big metal wheel with an opening large enough for a person to pass through on this gurney lying perpendicular to it. Attached to the wheel are three huge boxes that rotate around the gurney. I’m assuming this is the imaging machine and those big boxes are cameras of some type.

I’m asked to lay down on the gurney and take it easy. Take it easy? That’s all I been doing here. So far this is the most unstressful stress test I’ve ever had. It’s more like an anxiety test because I want things to move, and that’s one thing I have no control over at the moment.

A mechanism lifts the gurney and moves me forward into the hole in the middle of the wheel. My arms are placed above my head in these arm rests and there’s a wooden pole that I can hold on to for support. I am in a position that’s similar to one hanging from a pole by ones hands, except I’m laying down.

Once inside the big wheel the bed rises. The wheel begins to rotate and stop where it positions each of the huge blocks above my chest and it looks as if they are focusing because the move towards and away from me. I hear clicks behind me, but all I can see is the machine in front of me. The machine, by the way, is a Picker Prism 3000. I’m assuming it’s an upgrade from the 2000 series, but that may be the isotope talking.

About the isotope. Yes, I was worried, too. It’s nuclear, it’s radioactive, it’s unknown. Seeing no one with three arms around, and noting the small size of the protective casing around the serum I gather it’s relatively safe to handle and ingest. I’m told it’s Technetium, or TC99m. I’m soothed by the way he said it that it was a good thing. He said there have been absolutely no side effects. And here I was hoping for that eye in the back of my head so I could return to the classroom.

Then the big machine begins to slowly rotate, something on the order of 0.05 rpm. Seriously, it was so slow it’s like watching an eclipse. You know the shadow is moving, but you can’t tell.

I have to admit that I am somewhat of a claustrophobic, but I was quite comfortable being enclosed in this machine. But that was probably because my head was exposed and arms were free. My stress level did rise, however, when I took a good look at the blocks as they slowly, and I cannot emphasize enough the word slowly, revolved around me. There were scratchs that looked remarkably like fingernail marks on the edge of these big heads. I’m not going to even try and speculate what caused those marks, but there were quite a few, and whatever caused them was pretty determined that they be there judging by their depth and number.

I have now been here about two hours, and I have had approximately 70 minutes of opportunity to nap. I had just dozed off again when I heard a click and saw that the heads had almost made a complete revolution. What concerned me was an icon on the machine, a decal actually, that was a yellow triangle with an exclamation mark inside. I don’t know what it meant, but I thought to myself that that’s the same symbol that pops on my computer screen when my virus protection program issues a warning. I’m not really a superstitious guy, but under these circumstances I can’t help but wonder what that warning sign might mean. Sorry, I never got an answer.

They make me sit up on the gurney once it’s out of the machine, and I can see into another office, an administrative office I believe. It’s not the office that interests me so much as the clock on the wall. It’s not stuck on 6:53 like the one in the other room , and it’s not reflecting the 10:15 like the clock in here. It’s something close to 11:25. I’m thinking people around here really don’t place an emphasis on time, or maybe time is relative. Again, your own metaphors are welcomed.

Show’s over, and I’m back in the waiting room. Regis is on the tube. All TVs appear to be tuned to CBS. Not being a morning television watcher (or evening, for that matter) I can’t get interested. But there’s little else interesting in here. There’s one magazine, “Diabetes,” but I think I’ll pass. Oh, here’s the consolidated government’s annual report; boy, that was a quick read. Here’s the hospital admittance manual. How can they sell an ad in there and why is lunch more than dinner?

I am bored – terribly bored, I mean majorly bored. My mind is bouncing around the inside of my cranium like a Super Ball looking for a way out. There’s nothing here but the TV, and all apologies to Regis Philbin, but cerebral excercises and Live With Regis and Kelly are two phrases that rarely find company in the same paragraph. The kicker was the Kelly wasn’t even on today, it was his wife Joy. I don’t know if that means anything, but the one day I get to see them and half of the billing is missing.

I begin to think that if I were held captive in a closed room with a book to read I could probably survive. And there are times that I enjoy the solitude of being alone with nature with no distractions. But confined and unchallenged? I sulked in my own Abu Ghraib wishing for one questioner to pluck me from this mental isolation.

Mercifully I was beckoned to the treadmill room. In simplest terms a treadmill is a device composed of two rollers, one usually motorized and a wide belt stretched between the two flanked by handles rising to support a person walking upon the belt. This was a treadmill in its simplest terms. This did not have the two-inch foam-padded handles with programmable dashboard and headphone jack with channel changer. This was a rubber belt with two wooden handles, oh, and a bunch of wires.

The nurse, yes, she was a nurse, asked me to remove my shirt to place the electrodes. “Oh, I’m going to have to get a razor.” Now, I’m not Robin Williams, but still, clear-cutting a virgin forest is not something to be entered into lightly. Dry clear-cutting is just sadistic. Fortunately it wasn’t a razor-blade type razor but an electric razor – a very small, unsharp electric razor that pulled more hair out than it cut. I’m thinking this razor was in the deleted scenes of “40 Year Old Virgin.”

One-hundred forty-seven electrodes were then placed over various parts of my body. I think there were only 10, but there could have been more. I really wasn’t counting.  Oh, and I didn’t mentioned how COLD they were when they put them on. I’m in shorts, remember, and she makes me take off my shirt.

“Are you ok?” she asked. “Sure, but could you warm up the spot with an ice cube before you place the next one?”

For this part of the test, the actual stress test, the doctor needs to be present. The reason for that is that only a doctor can pronounce the time of death when you stumble off the treadmill and all of those electrodes are ripped from your body at the same time. Razor or no, those little suckers still hurt when you pull them off.

After another 20 minutes or so he finally arrives, and I’m up on the treadmill. I can see the console and the EKG printout from where I’m walking, soon to be running. The lab guy says that when I get my heart rate up to 136 bpm they will inject another isotope in my IV, and I’ll need to continue for another minute.

In about five minutes I’ve gone from 89 to 141 beats per minute, and my mind is screaming at them “HEY, 141 IS HIGHER THAN 136 YOU KNOW!” But nothing is coming out of my mouth except deep pants. Someone notices and injects the isotope. I’m thinking Stephen Boyd and Raquel Welch are getting a bumpy ride about now.

Did I mention that this contraption speeds up every three minutes? Oh yes, injection and then zoom! They may have missed the 136 mark but they were right on the money with the minute, thank God.

The cool down period was probably the hardest of all. I’m tired and sweaty and now I have to wait to take more pictures with the Prism 3000.

The waiting room has a few different people in it right now including what looks to be an 11-year-old girl. I’m suspecting she’s the patient, otherwise what would she be doing out of school. They lead her off for what I presume is the prep work. I say a prayer.

Back in the Prism 3000 and it’s behaving differently. Instead of rotating slowly it’s locking the heads into specific positions and moving up and down like it’s focusing. Interesting.

Finally the best part of the whole procedure arrives and I’m done. I leave with two bandages on my arm and bald spots on my chest. And oh yes, with a radioactive element in my body.

The entire morning felt like that little clock struggling to make it past 40 seconds. No luck. I made it past, thankfully, and I really want to go back there tomorrow with a battery to help that little clock. Heck, with that isotope inside of me I may only have to touch it!

• “Come in here and watch history”
• An accidental tourist

Categories: What was I thinking?