Well, these past few months I've had a bit of a Health Scare. In January (I think it was), I went out for what was supposed to be an hour-long bike ride. To make a long story short, in the middle of the ride I got so faint and dizzy that I had to actually get off the bike and go have a little lie-down on somebody's lawn. (I'm sure it was quite a sight: There we were, me and my bike, sprawled out on the grass, me in my screaming yellow zephyrr jacket . . . )

After a little while, a nice woman stopped her car to see how I was doing. Turns out that she had been a nurse - and she was very concerned that perhaps I was having a heart attack. She wanted to call an ambulance, but I wouldn't let her. She offered me a ride home . . . but I would have had to leave my bike on the side of the road. (This was my good road bike. I don't want to mention how much it cost - but it certainly seems unlikely to me that I will ever get another like it, and I was not about to leave it.) Finally, we compromised: I called my nephew Ben, who was home for Christmas break, to come get me. And I promised the woman that I would go see my doctor.

Which I did. She ordered a stress echo test (where they take ultrasound pics of your heart before & after you exercise on a treadmill). I thought things were going very well - I stayed on the treadmill to within 5 beats of my maximum heart rate, and then they made me get off. The cardiologist reading the ultrasound, though, said there was a spot on the picture that was "questionable," and said that my doctor would be ordering more tests.

So then (a few weeks later, after much foot-dragging on my part) I had a cardiolyte stress test (where they inject you with a radioactive isotope so they can measure oxygen uptake before and after the treadmill). Another "questionable" spot. So the cardiologist wanted to do a heart catheterization and possibly put in a stent.

In the space of about two weeks I went from thinking that I was pretty darned healthy to thinking I was a heart patient. (I can't even explain the fear I felt. Ever since my dad had that damned aneurism, I've been terrified of heart things - in fact, I couldn't even stand to listen to Emil's heartbeat for about the first twenty years we were together.)

At about that time, the American College of Cardiology was releasing their report showing that stenting is no more effective than lifestyle modification and drugs at preventing heart attacks. So on the one hand, I was less than enthused about having an invasive procedure and possibly having a meaningless, expensive medical intervention. But on the other - it's my heart, for heaven's sake.

So I asked my doctor if I could get a second opinion. She said she thought that would be appropriate, and agreed to refer me to anyone I wanted. I went online, and found a woman at the University of Michigan who not only did interventional cardiology, but also specialized in women's heart issues and preventive cardiology as well.

The first appointment she had available was for yesterday. (That meant I could spend nearly two full months ignoring my "condition," which I did, most happily.)

Yesterday Emil and I drove down for my 8 am appointment - and it went as well as it could possibly have gone. The doctor looked at my test results and said that the fact that I stayed on the treadmill for 10 minutes (and within 5 beats of my maximal heart rate) gave me an "excellent prognosis," no matter what the rest of the results showed. (Thank you, Kenneth Cooper! I read Aerobics when I was but a wee bairn, and it changed - or rather I should say, formed - my life.) She also said that the two tests showed different results: One showed an abnormality on the front wall of my heart; the other showed one on the back wall. Therefore her opinion was that probably both tests showed artifacts of some kind - the tests are between 80-90% accurate, and if there's an error, it's generally a false positive. She said that it's sometimes difficult to read the results of women's tests because of breast tissue. (Gee, that's the first time my boobs have ever gotten in the way of anything! :)

As far as a heart cath, she wouldn't do one for a mild defect in any case, and especially not on the basis of one dubious incident. I mentioned the ACC study - and she said that she's the head of Cardiology at the Ann Arbor VA hospital, and they enrolled patients in that study . . . so she was quite familiar with it. And wasn't surprised by the results.

I asked if it made sense to have a follow-up stress test in a few months to monitor those ambiguous results, and she said she'd be happy to order one if I wanted, but in her professional opinion it wasn't medically necessary.

Needless to say, I was immensely relieved. I didn't realize how relieved until later in the day, when I broke into a run to catch up with Emil - and thought, "Hey! I don't have to worry about this!" Now I can once again go on long bike rides - push myself physically - and not worry . . . I'm not borderline sick. I'm the healthy person I thought I was.

Also needless to say, this is even better news than selling the house. I've just been over-the-top happy for the past 24 hours, and I expect that the mere thought that I don't have heart problems will exert a cheering effect on me for weeks to come . . .

So now I'm off to go do something physical. In the 90-degree heat. Because I can. :)