Let's get Physical

So. My Dad was just diagnosed with heart disease, and I'm 40 now. Maybe it's time for a physical. 

Plus, I've been a little ill. Not anything to get excited about, just little things. Like every time I take a deep breath, I get a pain in my stomach. I can't take a deep enough breath to get a good yawn out, so I'm incessantly yawning. Weird little things.  

So, I went in for a physical. Here I am right before I left: 

Please ignore the messy laundry room behind me. I just wanted to get a good before picture.

The physical was pretty normal. The doctor didn't care much about my stomach pain. "Take some meta-musil and a stool softener." Umm, ok.

But, she much more concerned about my pulse. A normal pulse is between 60 and 100, and I'm usually about 70. But when I went in for my physical, it was only 45.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It could mean several things," the doctor replied. "Usually athletes have a low pulse," she said, looking me up and down, "but you're not an athlete."

No, I'm not an athlete. And F you, by the way.

The Doctor decided I need an EKG.  Here's the bed I had to lay on while they hooked me up with all kinds of wires:

And my pulse was even lower-- only 41.

My doctor didn't know what to make of it, so she called the cardiologist, who said I needed to take a treadmill test.

Meanwhile, The Agent was at home,  kind of freaking out. He kept texting me: "What's going on? Do I need to come get you? Does the doctor need to talk to both of us?"

No, Honey. Stop freaking out. You're making me nervous.

So, next was the treadmill test. When they hooked me up, I saw that my pulse had gone up to 63:

"Look, it's back up to normal. Does that mean I don't have to take the test?"

"No, the cardiologist replied. "You're probably nervous, so that would raise your pulse. Your blood pressure is higher than it was before, too."

Rats.

Ok, so the way the treadmill test works is that you start slow and flat on the treadmill, and then every couple of minutes it gets steeper and faster. You're hooked up to all kinds of wires, and the machine records how fast your pulse accelerates, and how long it takes to get back to your resting heart rate when you're done.  The idea is to at least get to your target heart rate, and then try to go as long as you can after that.

Ya'll. It turns out I AM an athlete.

It took me 8 minutes to get to my target heart rate.  I was on the machine for a total of 9:31, and afterwards I thought I probably could have gone longer, but it was going so steep and fast by then that I was afraid I was going to fall.

It took me two minutes to get back to my resting heart rate.

The cardiologist looked at the results and said, "Your heart is very healthy. I'm sure your pulse rate is just low because you're in such great shape."

I looked around the room to make sure he wasn't talking to someone else. No one has ever said I'm in great shape before.

"Well, that's nice of you to say," I said. "But what about.... I mean, I'm like 30 pounds overweight."

"Healthy isn't always about weight," the cardiologist answered. "Your heart is healthy, but I can't say anything about the rest of you."

My heart is going to inhale a pan of brownies now...