Stress Test Day #64

I completed my stress test and nuclear imaging today.  I have been dreading and nervous to the point that I have gotten Cindy worried about me having this done.  Like most things in life that you anticipate with anxiety and dread, and work yourself into all sorts of reasons not to do it.  Sooner or later you find yourself actually doing it, and that it's not as dreadful as you had convinced yourself it would be.   Finally after it is over, you're feeling pretty good about yourself for doing it and not wimping out.

First I will go over my cholesterol results.   My triglycerides were 45,  which is good in the sense it is very low.  Triglyceride levels below 150 are considered normal, 200 and above are high.   My LDL levels were 54 which is also very good.  Below 200 being desirable.  My HDL was 49 is also good.  The higher the HDL the better, which is just the opposite of LDL and triglyceride levels.   My total cholesterol level is 112 which my cardiologist has told me if I can maintain it would be ideal for me.  There is a formula for calculating your total level.  I use to think it was the combined total of the 3 which is incorrect.   You multiply your triglyceride level by 20% and add that result to your LDL and HDL levels to get your total cholesterol.   Or you can go to hughchou.org/calc/chol plug in your 3 numbers and it will calculate your total.  I am wondering how many of you are struggling with lowering your cholesterol.   Obviously I have preached about eating healthy and your diet being so important, but in reality if you have had a heart attack, and or heart surgery you should really do whatever is necessary to lower those numbers to healthy levels for you. 

Now for my stress test.  I felt pretty good about myself after it was over.   But frankly, it was not near as intense or intimidating as the one I had while in the hospital 2 years ago.   Images of your heart are taken by a gamma camera, which is a large machine that rotates around your body.  They inject you with something named radionuclides which flows through your heart and arteries.  You are lying flat on your back and must remain motionless for 15 minutes, while surrounded by the machine.  You then rest briefly, then take a treadmill stress test, rest a few minutes, then go back and have another 15 minutes of motionless images taken.   Then they flip you over on your stomach to get another angle of your heart, and do the motionless images again.

After reviewing the test stress results, my cardiologist gave me some good news.  I did very well on the treadmill, able to go the full time and achieved 90% of the target heart rate for my test.  I am no longer going to be wearing the nitroglycerin patch, and will instead begin to take medication to increase my heart rate.   So I now feel relieved and much less concerned about my low heart rate.

Today was the first day in more than 2 weeks that my nagging lower back pains seem to have gone away.  When I work out tomorrow I may try some of the least stressful exercises to sort of begin to get back to a full workout routine.  Now with the holidays, medical exams getting over, and feeling more normal, I am excited about getting back into my daily workout and exercise routine.

Wearing the nitroglycerin patch was really wearing on my morale, contrary of not living with the fear of being a heart attack waiting to happen.  My instructions were to put it on daily at 7:00 a.m.  Well, I have told you that I enjoy deer hunting this time of year, especially on cold mornings.   Other people who enjoy the outdoors will understand this, but there is something special when in the woods, by yourself, on a freezing morning and watching the daybreak sun come up and melt away the frost  from a field you are watching.  Well, on such a morning, I peeled off a pair of warm insulated hunting bibs, one windproof insulated vest, one windproof lightweight jacket, and one long sleeve jersey pull over, in 24 degree weather.  There I stood, all by myself, bare chested, in the blowing freezing wind trying to apply a nitroglycerin patch at 7:00 a.m.  I wonder what those just awakening squirrels looking down on me were thinking?
Happy New Year