by SactoBob » Wed May 06, 2009 8:30 am
I really appreciate the support I have here. Strangely, I am feeling deeply emotional today about my test yesterday. I knew that I was feeling much better, and was committed to what I am doing regardless of what the test showed.
But I was very anxious about the test. I have always seen heart disease as a chronic condition - a death sentence really, and there was something about it that made me doubt whether the test results would be as positive as they were. Something in the back of my mind still questioned whether part of my improvement might have been the placebo effect.
The anxiety over the test was because it was totally objective and not something over which I had any control. It is just overwhelming to see graphic proof that this disease is not the killer it is always thought to be, and that we can choose not have a chronic condition increasingly intrude upon our enjoyment of life. It has been a surprisingly overwhelming and humbling experience.
BTW, I hope that nothing I said reflected poorly on my cardiologist. He is well trained and a nice person and has an open mind. You have to take into account that what I am doing is something he knows nothing about, and is not within the scope of his training. I could see that he was a bit puzzled by my results, but happy for them. He seemed especially puzzled that I had no chest pain at 100% heart rate where I had lots of chest pain last time at 85%. Otherwise, he thought that perhaps there could have been a problem with the first test somehow showing more blockage than existed.
I am very confident that the first test was a good one, since my symptoms correlated completely with the results. I can say the same for the second test too.
Last edited by SactoBob on Wed May 06, 2009 11:33 am, edited 1 time in total.