Yesterday was the second longest day of this year. I had to get up early to drive out to Tanasbourne early for my biennial Echo. It’s something I have to do to make sure all the tubes and pumps are working in my heart.
The hospital is running on a skeleton crew since the pandemic. There is a bank of kiosks where I check in to receive my tiny treasure map that prints out. Go up four floors and turn right, go to the third unstaffed waiting area. There is a sign over the door. “If your name isn’t called fifteen minutes after your appointment, call (list of numbers) on the phone at the end of the hall.”
I buy Ivy a bag of pretzels from the vending machine and we settle in for the wait. Twenty minutes goes by and I check for the phone, but it’s missing. I try to use my cell phone. While I am still halfway through an electronic phone tree, a door opens up and the technician calls my name.
For the uninitiated, an echocardiogram is basically a sonogram of your heart. There’s a thick viscous jelly on a paddle that is shoved into your chest, so it gets pretty uncomfortable. While its fascinating to see your heart do its job, it’s also a little disconcerting to see your own inner body parts on a monitor. The movement is really intense and you can’t help but wonder how it can go on like that day-after-day.
After the measurements are taken, I meet with my new doctor. Unfortunately, every time I switch insurance companies, I also switch doctors because the Kaiser doctors are in-network with Kaiser and the Providence doctors are in-network with Providence, but they don’t share.
The new cardiologist mispronounces my condition—not a good start. On the plus side, she seems to have at least spent some time on the internet updating her information. She tells me that there is a European medicine not yet approved of in the states. I have a half-used bottle of the beta blockers that we sell, but they make me feel terrible, so I quit taking them. Since my blood pressure is already low, she doesn’t make me take more. Her only recommendation is to avoid high impact sports and doing deadlifts. Check and check.
Along with the echo, my doctor also recommends getting an MRI. The last MRI I had was in 2015, back when I was with Kaiser insurance. Now I am wondering if the reason I haven’t have an MRI for nine years is because Providence doesn’t cover MRIs? She puts in a an order, but I can’t call for a while because the current appointments are all full. I should be able to get something by June.
If I make it. My birthday is in June too. I will be turning 48. That number is also the average life expectancy that shows up in Google searches of my condition. Cutting it a little close, aren’t we? I know that life is not that well organized, but between three relatives that died at 31, 56 and 59, the math is pretty accurate. (Insert reassuring words about the possibility of getting hit by a bus to make having genetic condition feel less like an oracle of doom.)
So, all I can do at this point is to drive home and keep living. I am writing all this to vent my feelings in a way that doesn’t freak out my family. They are the main reason I do most things these days and why I want to stick around for a few more decades, at least.
