STRESSED!

After yesterday's ordeal, my assignment for today was to get a stress test scheduled. Which I did as soon as I could.
I went to the office, and left at lunchtime.
When I got to cardiology, David took me to my room.
He was very friendly and informative. He walked me through the whole process, and put up with my nervious humor.
I got hooked up to the EKG machine, and had my blood pressure taken.
Then I was on the bed where Brenda would do the sonogram.
Since the sound waves have a hard time seeing through bone, she had to jam the thingamajigger in between the ribs, and twist it this way and that.
After a few minutes of that. She decided that I needed "the tracer". Which meant I had to have an IV for them to shoot this stuff into my bloodstream so that the image would be better.
So in comes Allen, the nurse. He asks me if I prefer to have it in my hand or my arm. I tell him "I prefer to get stuck once. Whatever you think is best!"
These people were good with my humor.
So I get stuck in pretty much the same spot I had the IV yesterday, and Brenda is back to jamming me in the ribs.
But the image is still not what they want, so they swap out the machine for the one that goes "BING!" and we're in business.
So it's treadmill time. They start you out at 1.5mph at 10 degrees of incline. Every three minutes the machine goes up 1mph and 2 degrees.
I'm doing good. Getting more of a work out than I have in a while. I still worked through. But when I got to 8.5 minutes I was worried about the jump from 3.5 to 4.5mph, and the 16 degree incline. I told them so.
They needed 30 seconds for the tracer to work through before I get off the treadmill. So they'd inject it at 9 minutes and have me jog hard for 30 seconds, before stopping.
At 9:30, they hit the stop button, and I drop onto the bed and roll over for the sonogram.
Brenda gets the shot she wants, while jamming me in the ribs.
But before I know it, we're done.
I sit up and they start removing the wires and sticky pads.
"I'm feeling nauseous." I tell them as I start to realize it.
"Lie down!" David says, "Put your knees up!"
I do so, and Allen gets me some juice and crackers.
It took a few minutes to recover. David took my blood pressure, 90 over 70. Not so good.
I finally get the stuff off of me, and get dressed. Allen is not happy with my color, and asks me to wait another 10 minutes in the lobby.
So I do, and I finally get the ok to go.

It'll be 7-10 days before I hear anything.