total eclipse of the space pr0n

So I did my stress test this morning. Without coffee, no less.

I got to see an ultrasound of my heart for the first time. Which is MAGNIFICENT. I tell you, watching your heart flex in time with your pulse is fascinating.

Then I got to hear it, which kinda took the dignity out of the whole experience. You know how when you lie your head against somebody's breast you hear a stately thump-thump thump-thump noise? Without the filtering effect of sound-waves conducted through bone you can also hear the swooshing of blood through the chambers, and it sounds a lot more like "Wakka-chikka wakka-chikka". And it's at a much higher pitch than I expected. And the machine they use to amplify it adds this weird empty-room hollow effect to the sound. All I could think of was, "Holy shit, my heart sounds like space porn."

The doctor told me I was probably the healthiest person they had ever had in that clinic. So they put me on a treadmill. Then they took me off the treadmill and did more ultrasounds. And that's when the little notch in my heartbeat shows up.

The doctor showed me the graph and there's a spot after the main contraction where the wave goes down instead of up. According to the him[1] this is really common and in the vast majority of cases it means nothing. But you know, family heart attacks. So I go back next week to get injected with radioactive dye and do the whole thing again and then we'll know for sure.

So that's where that is.



[1] I've been hunting around on google but I haven't found anything useful yet.