"Turn on... your heart light...."

On Friday I did my second treadmill test, this time after being injected with a radioactive isotope.  Once the tech put me in the machine that would take the pictures of my heart (after I walked uphill for ten minutes on the treadmill), he adjusted a monitor over my head so that I could see a scan of my body.  The image was an amazing, shadowy form made up of bright dots… which made me feel as if my body were a constellation of stars.  “We are stardust, we are golden….”

I went back this morning to be injected again for more pictures of my heart, this time without the treadmill part. I had to lie as still as possible for 17 minutes, but the tech put on some Norah Jones, so all I had to do was relax and enjoy the music.  Afterward I was congratulated for doing a “good job” of not moving and told the results of the test would be ready in “three to five days.”  Sigh.  The results are there, ready to be interpreted by a cardiologist, but that’s why I have to wait—until some doctor has the time to pick up the chart of a stranger and come to a conclusion about her health based on some pretty pictures.

For all of my adult life, I have been fascinated by medical technology; I can only appreciate it all the more now that it’s being applied to me.  At every doctor’s appointment I’ve had in the past two months, I’ve been complimented on my great blood pressure.  I will say again—Is anyone listening?—that I have not felt stressed through all of this.  I know that eventually the docs will find the problem and fix it.  If this were happening to one of my kids, that would be stressful.  But as it is, my biggest challenge currently is this prolonged inactivity.  I long to walk out the door and up to the waterfall, but caution dictates that I wait until some answers emerge from the test results.

So here I am, filling my time with a lot of reading, very little writing and watching far too much television (which for me generally means the news, although I did catch Pride and Prejudice last night on one of the chick channels, watching it for the tenth time or so).  For those of you who have been sending prayers/energy/good thoughts: Thank you.  I can feel it.  Please don’t stop.  I’m convinced that’s why I’ve been able to be so calm through all of this; I definitely know that I’m loved.