My Heart | Photo 02

So this picture has a little bit of a story behind it. I was thinking the yesterday about all the medical deals I have going on with me. I had a knee operation (totally not my fault, but I forgive the girl!) and I thought that would kind of be the only real problem I'd have to deal with the rest of my life. WRONG! About 2 years ago when I was working at Hell-Mart (Wal-Mart) I noticed that I was starting to have these insane heart palpitations that just seemed to come and go as they please. They weren't brought on by doing to much running or anything like that they would just appear out of no were whether I was sitting down or just taking a walk. They really started to bother me so I decided to go to the doctor. No big deal she'd just tell me I was fine and send me on my way. Instead I had to give her blood work and she scheduled me to have a stress test. OH FUN! The blood work was fine though she did confirm that I had thalassemia minor (which is a type of anemia, but I knew I had it since I was ittle), but it was no big deal.

So I go in for my stress test which is awful by the way! They make you walk on this treadmill that speeds up and raises up at an incline every 3 minutes. Not fun. I think i was only on there not even 10 minutes and I couldn't hack it. What can I say I'm a wuss. Than they let me sit down for a bit (thank god!) and I thought everything was kosher and I was hoping I would never have to do that again. I got my hopes up a little too high. They said my test weren't exactly great so they wanted me to come back and do a cardiolite stress test. It's like your average stress test, but worse! Ha ha. First I found out I had to take a pregnancy test, which I thought they'd just give you one at the hospital, but turns out I had to buy it on my own. Since I didn't read the fine print (who does?) one of the nurses had to go search down a pregnancy test for me, which turned out NEGATIVE just like I had predicted. They shove a needle in your arm and put in this liquid to light your heart up so they can see it when it's at rest and when it's pumping really fast. Now they go strap me down to this x-ray type deal that kind of spins around very slowly and takes pictures of your heart at rest. Than the fun begins! It's back to the treadmill. Ugh!!!! Than when that's all done they give me this really awful orange juice that tasted like crap and took more pictures. I waited thinking I was finally done with this place...NOPE! I go back to get my results (oh yes I had to make a separate appointment for that!) and while he's listening to my heart he proclaims "Oh you have a heart murmur!" Greattttt!!!

Now I have to go back to these people and have an echocardiogram (ultrasound of the heart) and I am kind of tired of all this running around, but whatever it's my heart I need it so I'll go with the program. They do the ultrasound and all this time I can heart the click my heart makes whenever it beats. Definitely not normal, but nothing that I was worried about. After all this running around I finally got a diagnosis. Apparently my valve is having issues (a few of them actually I believe he said 3 out of 4 of them had some slight regurgitation) and I have what is called a Mitral Valve Prolapse. Nothing too life threatening (unless it gets worse) and apparently a lot of people have this. It's really common in woman and the only deal is that if you have to get dental work done you have to tell them you have this so they can give you antibiotics, otherwise you could get a heart infection. I was prescribe Toporal, but I never felt the need to take it. Also the fact that it's a medication used to slow your heart down kind of made me iffy.

So that my friends is my heart story. I do still get the frequent palpitations, but it's something I can live with. I consider myself very lucky and am glad that it wasn't anything to be insanely concerned about. In that aspect I am a very healthy individual who will hopefully live until she's well into her 80's (like my grandma!) and have a happy life! Wish me luck!