See you in six

Last Wednesday was my day to visit the cardiologist. It was time for a checkup and to have him check the settings and readings on my defibrillator.

Waiting to be called back to see the Cardiologist

What they do is place electrodes or stickers like they do for an EKG on my chest and the cardiologist brings in a computer/programmer that kind of looks like a laptop, it has a wand looking device attached to it and he places this over my defibrillator. With the wand in place he can adjust the settings and read what my heart has been doing since my last visit, it tells him if my heart has thrown any weird signals like any arrhythmias, fast heart rates, or anything it isn't supposed to be doing.

Was that my name?

As most of you know I really like my cardiologist. He is an outgoing individual and somewhat of a jokester, but at the same time deadly serious when it comes to my health care, he explains everything in terms that you can understand.

Once when I asked a question about my defibrillator, whether it could possibly go off and for me not to realize that I had been shocked. He smiled and said if it ever goes off you will definitely know it, it will feel kind of like a mule kicking you in the chest.

While I was hooked up to the computer/programmer and he was checking the settings and reading the history on my defibrillator, he did offer to give me a test shock so I would know for sure what it felt like, I declined this offer and told him that I hoped it never had to shock me for any reason, he smiled and said that he really didn't want for it to shock me either.

Now his nurse is a different story, we will call her nurse M. You talk about a hateful individual when I first started seeing my cardiologist. Everything was a problem, she and Cindy were nose to nose over various issues, and it got to the point that I told my cardiologist that I was considering moving elsewhere because of her. The change didn't happen right away but to make a long story short she is great now, kind of like our new best friend. I think now that I am not a new patient she has taken me under her wing so to say, heck Cindy even likes her now.

The first thing the nurse M does is the typical, get your weight, temperature, blood pressure, O2 or oxygen saturation reading... all of my numbers were good but Cindy wasn't happy with the O2 reading of 94 that the nurse gave me. While nurse M was out of the room Cindy decided to double check this reading with her own pulse oximeter, yes Cindy carries a pulse oximeter in her pocketbook.

Cindy places her pulse oximeter on my finger and declares nurse M's reading incorrect; my O2 reading is actually 96. She sits down satisfied and we resume talking while we wait for nurse M to return. Cindy casually places the pulse oximeter on her own finger and glances at the reading, the next thing I know she sits upright and begins taking deep breaths, I wasn't sure what was going on with her, I really didn't think she had gone into labor or anything because that is not an issue, maybe a back cramp?

She continued taking deep breaths and with a panicked look on her face said, oh my God Jimmy, I can't believe my O2 has dropped so low. I look over at her hand and said; I don't see how your O2 could have dropped. Well look she said as she pointed her finger bearing the pulse oximeter at me.

I said, 98 looks pretty good to me Babe. She pulled her hand back and turned it around pointing towards herself instead of away and looked, she placed the pulse oximeter back in her pocketbook looked at me and said, Shut up, I thought it said 86.

Upside down pulse oximeter, finger goes here.

The display is set so she can read it while it is on her dad's or my finger, so with that said, when she saw her own reading, it was actually upside down. We had a good laugh over this; nurse M even thought it was funny. Even though Cindy told me to not tell anyone about this, she has told everyone we have seen since then, so I figure that the cat is out of the bag and I am safe telling you. If not then that will be a whole other post.

The rest of my visit was nothing more than going over everything and getting those words that I have been longing to hear, See you in Six. That is always a good sign when I don't have to go back for six months this means everything is good.

Cindy and I both did need an EKG for our yearly physical ordered by our Internal Medicine doctor. Rather than go through the lab/radiology department and to be sent right back up to cardiology where we were, I asked my cardiologist if we could just get it done since we were already there. He told nurse M to go ahead and set us up for an EKG.

Nurse M took us down to the EKG room where we waited for the Technician to get ready, She called us both in and had me remove my shirt, stuck all the sticker/electrodes on me and did the deed...done.

She even let Cindy "YANK" all of the sticker/ electrodes off of my chest, which Cindy enjoys way too much. I now have less hair on my chest and there are several hairy sticker/electrodes in the EKG rooms trashcan that gave Cindy a little bit of satisfaction possibly for something that I didn't know I did.

Next it was Cindy's turn. The technician said to Cindy, I need you to take your shirt off. Now she is sitting there in her bra and asks if she needs to remove it also, the tech said to just unhook the back of it. Cindy laughed and said, this is the first time I have had an EKG with someone else in the room. The tech said we usually only do one at a time but since I had you both back to back I figured since you are married that I could bring you in together.

I said, that's not my wife, first time I ever saw her was in the waiting room. The tech looked at me and then looked back to Cindy. Cindy then told her, I don't know that man, and I wondered why you had me take my shirt off in front of him. But you both have the same last name, she said. Yes that is a coincidence isn't it, I told her. There was a long moment of silence and then we all had a good laugh.

I now wonder if that will be our last dual EKG.