Dubious Quality

Because of the cardiac issues discovered last year during the calcium CT scan, my cardiologist sent me for a stress test last week. I was having a bit of indigestion, and they wanted to make sure it wasn't cardiac-related (cardiac stress can have a million symptoms, all of which are annoying, because they're usually caused by much simpler issues).

In case you've never had one, here's how it works.

This was a nuclear stress test, so they put in an IV and took some initial pictures of my cardiac region at rest. Then I was hooked up to a dozen or so leads and put on a treadmill. The goal is to stay on as long as you can, as they raise the speed and incline in three-minute intervals. They want your heart to reach 80% of max, at least, so they can measure if there are any abnormalities under load. About twenty minutest after you finish, they take another set of pictures before they let you go.

As I was walking into the room, I noticed the door across the hallway was labeled "CRASH CART." Eli 22.5 said later that I saw that and thought "Challenge accepted."

It's strange, to have all those leads connected to you while you're trying to exercise. Plus, the inclines are extreme. My heart didn't get to the 80% range (135) until the fourth segment, and the incline at that point was fifteen degrees. The last segment, which I finished but didn't continue past, was at five MPH and eighteen degrees incline. I felt like I was climbing a wall, and by then, my heart rate was in the high 160s. I thought I could go onto the next interval, but wouldn't have made it for more than fifteen or twenty seconds, and I didn't want to fall on my face, so I signaled that I was done.

As a reminder, I'm very competitive, or used to be, and I was fighting to stay on there as long as I possibly could.

It was fifteen minutes in total, and the last three minutes definitely loaded me up on lactic acid. And sweat. It's been a long time since my heart rate was that high, too. It felt like I'd just finished a 10-k after sprinting the last quarter mile. What I remember of that, anyway. 

The measurement used on this test is something called METS, which measures exercise capacity. For my age group, I needed roughly 9 METS to be considered in the above average category. High would be 11, and Elite would be over 13.

Good news on that front: I was over 17.

That would be in the elite category for any age, even Eli's group. It was nice to get a positive measurement that my exercise program is working, even though it never feels like I'm working out hard enough (because I'm not, compared to when I was younger).

It also really annoys me that my exercise capacity is so high and yet I still have some arterial blockage. The body is a strange beast.