I failed my stress test.<\/p>\n
I have high cholesterol.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s part of being Jewish.\u00c2\u00a0 Along with the rye bread and pastrami.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t think that much about it, but my doctor was flipped.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, my doctor is flipped.\u00c2\u00a0 He was such an asshole, I wanted to switch, but then he went to psychotherapy, went off insurance and now gives concierge service…\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes I have to throw HIM off the phone.<\/p>\n
He sent me for this test.\u00c2\u00a0 You ride through this big O.\u00c2\u00a0 And speaking of O’s, that’s what I got, a big fat zero, I aced the test, I had no plaque in my arteries.\u00c2\u00a0 But that was back in 1999.<\/p>\n
He asked if I’d see a nutritionist.\u00c2\u00a0 To combat my over 300 cholesterol.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, I don’t know anything about food.\u00c2\u00a0 My triglycerides got better, but I still blew that high number…\u00c2\u00a0 So finally, he put his foot down, he insisted I go on a statin.\u00c2\u00a0 I took Lipitor.<\/p>\n
But Lipitor raised this muscle enzyme.\u00c2\u00a0 Which troubled him.<\/p>\n
So I switched to Zocor, which didn’t work nearly as well.<\/p>\n
And then he wanted me to go on Vytorin, which Blue Cross wouldn’t approve, but finally did.\u00c2\u00a0 And the drug worked oh-so-well. But then the newspaper was riddled with bad stories, how its maker fudged the test results, how some test results were negative!<\/p>\n
And I don’t like bad news.\u00c2\u00a0 But I had to go for a blood test, for this kidney scan (I’m fine, but prone to stones), and since I paid $200 for the damn test, now that he’s at concierge level, my doctor charges a fortune, I wanted an interpretation of the numbers.\u00c2\u00a0 So when I was seeing the nutritionist not quite a month ago, I asked if he’d be around when I was done.\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out he wouldn’t be, but he’d come get me during my session.<\/p>\n
So, he’s going on and on.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is making me uptight, because I’m paying for the nutritionist session…\u00c2\u00a0 Giving me every last detail re my kidneys and the anti-inflammatories I take, and then I asked him about the Vytorin.\u00c2\u00a0 He said the true results wouldn’t be in for a couple of years.\u00c2\u00a0 He thought I should stay on the drug.\u00c2\u00a0 But, if I wanted to see the heart guy…\u00c2\u00a0 Did I want to see the heart guy?\u00c2\u00a0 He’s on the plan…<\/p>\n
Well…<\/p>\n
When I got back to the nutritionist, she told me her husband had had a freak-out, and had gone to see Dr. ___.\u00c2\u00a0 She rolled her eyes and said he was a bit weird.\u00c2\u00a0 But that her hubby had had the stress test and was fine.<\/p>\n
So I expected one of those cold number crunching dr.’s.<\/p>\n
Yes, I made an appointment.\u00c2\u00a0 Why not?\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve reached my TWO THOUSAND DOLLAR DEDUCTIBLE!<\/p>\n
I’m embarrassed.\u00c2\u00a0 What am I doing there, wasting this guy’s time.\u00c2\u00a0 Who turned out to be incredibly voluble, so full of information that I was afraid to interrupt him.<\/p>\n
He wanted to know my history, operations, etc.<\/p>\n
You get so old you forget your history, you don’t want to remember surgeries.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t think this would be part of the visit.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m scratching my head like a dolt.\u00c2\u00a0 And when we’re all done, he sends me in for an EKG.<\/p>\n
But first, he starts checking my body.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s some blockage in my ankles…\u00c2\u00a0 How the hell can he feel that?<\/p>\n
Do my calves hurt when I hike?<\/p>\n
Well, yeah.<\/p>\n
But it turns out they have to hurt WHILE you hike, not after, so it’s not that big a deal…\u00c2\u00a0 Or is it?<\/p>\n
Then the tech puts stickers all over my chest, runs the EKG and I’m done.<\/p>\n
But I’m not.\u00c2\u00a0 The doctor wants to run a stress test.\u00c2\u00a0 He says it should be mandatory after 50.\u00c2\u00a0 Like a colonoscopy.<\/p>\n
Can I pee first?<\/p>\n
And I’m standing in the bathroom, half-freaked, but thinking what a great story this is.\u00c2\u00a0 My anxiety dealing with the health care system, my mortality, how I walked up to the line, freaked out about my health, but was okay.\u00c2\u00a0 How I was scared straight.<\/p>\n
The nurse shaved my tits to put on electrodes.\u00c2\u00a0 She strapped a battery pack to my abdomen.\u00c2\u00a0 I got on the treadmill, which got faster and steeper, and I’m doing so well, and then the doctor, running the test himself, which gives me confidence, tells me we’re done.<\/p>\n
I’ve got to sit there and calm down, the machine is still taking stats.\u00c2\u00a0 And when I’m just about normal, this doctor turns around and tells me the test was abnormal.<\/p>\n
As in YOU FUCKED UP AND WE’VE GOT TO DO IT AGAIN?<\/p>\n
Shit, I didn’t get it until we went back to his office where he put it to me straight…\u00c2\u00a0 I failed the stress test.\u00c2\u00a0 He said nobody likes to hear that they failed their stress test.<\/p>\n
Well, yeah!<\/p>\n
I’m starting to reel while it sinks in.<\/p>\n
He’s got to inject me with dye, take some pictures, look for blockage.\u00c2\u00a0 If it’s at the bottom of my heart, I will be fine.\u00c2\u00a0 If it’s near the top…<\/p>\n
He doesn’t think I need a bypass, based on how well I tolerated the stress test physically, but if he sees something in the next test, we’re going to have to do an angiogram.<\/p>\n
Huh?<\/p>\n
I need to take a baby aspirin…\u00c2\u00a0 And DON’T DO ANY EXERCISE!<\/p>\n
Suddenly, it occurs to me.\u00c2\u00a0 This guy’s afraid I’m going to go home and have a heart attack.\u00c2\u00a0 He wants me to lay low until we can do the next test, which is going to be DAYS AWAY!<\/p>\n
Are you fucking kidding me?<\/p>\n
I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it NOW!<\/p>\n
Finally, they squeezed me in the following day, Tuesday, yesterday.<\/p>\n
I had to wake up at 7:15 and finish eating breakfast by 7:30.\u00c2\u00a0 And then not eat anything again until four, after they’d taken pictures in the morning and the afternoon.<\/p>\n
I haven’t gotten up at that hour since I went to high school.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep.<\/p>\n
Hell, I couldn’t function.<\/p>\n
My life is going to be changed forever.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m going to be taking pills, afraid to fuck…\u00c2\u00a0 How did this happen?\u00c2\u00a0 I thought I was taking CARE OF MYSELF!<\/p>\n
So I show up at 9:30 and everybody’s so breezy, they want to bullshit.\u00c2\u00a0 I DON’T WANT TO BULLSHIT!\u00c2\u00a0 I’M GONNA DIE!<\/p>\n
Turns out I’ve got to get on that fucking treadmill once again.\u00c2\u00a0 And they’re cracking jokes and I’m wincing…\u00c2\u00a0 This may be de rigueur to you, but this is my one and only life.\u00c2\u00a0 Who cares about P2P theft, who cares about oil prices, who cares about the war in Georgia IF YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!\u00c2\u00a0 I was truly confronted with my mortality.\u00c2\u00a0 For the first time in my life I realized this is how it happened.\u00c2\u00a0 You were fine until you weren’t.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, you were erased from this planet and new, ignorant world-beaters replaced you, not realizing they too someday would die.\u00c2\u00a0 Like my dad.\u00c2\u00a0 And Felice’s dad.\u00c2\u00a0 At 70.\u00c2\u00a0 ONLY FIFTEEN YEARS AWAY!<\/p>\n
If I get that far.<\/p>\n
The tech taking the pictures wanted to discuss Guns N’ Roses.\u00c2\u00a0 Was the new album coming out this year?<\/p>\n
I grunted.<\/p>\n
I went back in the afternoon for the final pictures.<\/p>\n
I ate something.<\/p>\n
And continued to be non-functional.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, all that mattered so much didn’t matter anymore.<\/p>\n
They said I probably wouldn’t find out the results until five o’clock today.\u00c2\u00a0 I woke up to a phone message, but it was some magazine looking for a quote on the Jonas Brothers…\u00c2\u00a0 Were they billion dollar babies?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what they needed to know, Miley made a billion…\u00c2\u00a0 I’m trying not to yell.\u00c2\u00a0 No one in the music business has made a billion off one album, that’s a fictitious figure, counting in the "Hannah" TV show and…\u00c2\u00a0 Who gives a fuck.<\/p>\n
Then the plumber called.<\/p>\n
Then the phone rang again.<\/p>\n
There was a fifteen percent chance the initial test was wrong, that it was a false positive.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to be quite an optimist to consider those good odds.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m not.<\/p>\n
I’m sweating it out, fearful I’m going to die in my house, and I pick up the receiver and it’s the same woman who ran the test yesterday, the doctor’s nurse.\u00c2\u00a0 The test was normal.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m fine!<\/p>\n
I’m still in shock.\u00c2\u00a0 Bad things happen to good people every fucking day.\u00c2\u00a0 I feel like Cat Stevens, pledging my life to God from here on.<\/p>\n
The clouds have parted, I see clear skies and fifteen inches of powder in Vail’s back bowls.<\/p>\n
But yesterday, I was THIS CLOSE to the Grim Reaper.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I failed my stress test. I have high cholesterol.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s part of being Jewish.\u00c2\u00a0 Along with the rye bread and pastrami.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t think that much about it, but my doctor was flipped.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, my doctor is flipped.\u00c2\u00a0 He was such an asshole, I wanted to switch, but then he went to psychotherapy, went off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-lo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}