Back from the Brink, Part 2....what else

If you'll recall my last post, we were reviewing why I've been away from this post for the past couple of months. When we last left our hero, I was at my doctor's office, and he had given me a preliminary diagnosis that sleep apnea was causing my headaches, shortness of breath, and extreme tiredness.

In a vain attempt to relate to the kids today, let's refer to "extreme tiredness" as "X-Tiredness". Cool.

I should mention that at that time, I completely disagreed with the doctor's diagnosis. While I've had no "formal" medical training per se, I do watch a lot of "House" on TV, and I felt that that more than qualified me to make my own medical diagnosis. But my wife insisted that we listen to the doctor.

So the doctor wants me to have a sleep study done, but before that, I should see a Neurologist, just to eliminate the possibility of anything "funny" going on inside my head. Again, brain tumors, seizures, and aneurysms, aren't what I would usually consider to be funny, but what do I know? He's the one with the medical degree.

Just as I'm getting dressed to leave, the doctor pokes his head back in the exam room and says, "As long as your here, let's go ahead and do a EKG, just to make sure that your heart is OK as well". Well, I'm a big strong cyclist. I just did a two day, 150 mile bike ride. What could possibly be wrong with my heart? Yea, right.

After a couple of minutes, the nurse comes in and hooks up all of the little electrode things to my chest. While the thought of a strange woman hooking electrodes to my bare chest would normally be both frightening and somewhat arousing, for some reason in this case, it didn't quite have the same effect. Probably had something to do with my wife sitting there. She tells me to just lay back and relax. Again, under any other circumstance, if a strange woman said that to me, it would usually be a good thing.

We now begin the EKG. I should have known something wasn't right by the nurses reactions to the test. I heard a lot of "hmmm's", and a few "ohhhh's", and even one "Wow!". After a couple of minutes, were done. She removes the electrodes, gathers her things, and rushes out of the room like she's afraid she's going to catch whatever it is that's wrong with me.

A few minutes later the doctor returns. The first thing he says is "it's probably nothing to worry about, but". It's that "but" that scares the cr@p out of me. He continues.

"There were a couple of things on the EKG that just didn't look quite right. I'd like you to see a Cardiologist too".

OK, lets start adding these up. I come in with headaches, and so far:
1. I need to have a sleep study done, to confirm sleep apnea.
2. I might have a problem in my head, i.e...brain tumor.
3. There is apparently something wrong with my heart.

What else can go wrong? Pneumonia? Gout? Athletes foot? I was actually afraid to go outside, fearing that I would be set upon by a plague of locust.

Next post, we talk about my wild time at the Cardiologist office, and all the good times that we had there.

Peace out.....Nearly Famous Fred

Post Script...In case you missed it, The Fat Cyclist had a hilarious posting on his blog about a couple of packages of expired Shot Blok. I highly recommend that you go to my "Cool Links" directory on the right hand side of this page, click on "The Fat Cyclist" link, and scroll down the his posting titled "The Shot Blok Experiments".