It’s alarming how often the Grim Reaper turns up at endurance events. As a former smoker and wobble-bottom I’ve often wondered how healthy my heart is and whether it’s hanging on by a thread or whether the recent years of solid exercise have reversed the decay and honed it to a fabulous, precision-engineered pump. Watching someone die on Long Course, a chap of my age with many events under his belt and no knowledge of his narrowed arteries, was motivation enough to have a look ‘under the hood’. More recently, a week before my appointment, I heard the news that a cycling buddy had suffered a cardiac arrest on a casual ride and was saved by the prompt intervention of his knowledgeable companions, rushed to A&E and following insertion of a stent, should make a full recovery. So, prompted by this disturbing band of ostensibly healthy competitors suffering out of the blue cardiac arrest, I found myself at the Bristol Sports Cardiology Centre having my chest skilfully lubed by the delightful Dr Graham Stuart.

…the pump in your chest runs for your entire life without stopping and it’ll run just fine simply on porridge and Snickers.

No surprise we started with family history and general chitchat. Thankfully my immediately family don’t appear to be heart attack prone so my score card started well. Once thoroughly moist it was time for the ultrasound scan which I can’t deny was rather fascinating. I know it’s obvious but it’s also still amazing that the pump in your chest runs for your entire life without stopping and it’ll run just fine simply on porridge and Snickers. It’s not a pretty organ, all squelchy and flappy but it does an important, or should we say crucial, job. With his clever scanner he could measure wall thickness and ventricle diameters, along with all manner of leak detection and possibly miles per gallon for all I know.

The ultrasound was nothing but impressive. Wall thickness, flow rates, valve leakage, chamber pressures and service intervals – it was rather like studying the data from my old racing Mini engines. Either way, it all seemed to please the cardiologist and he passed me a tissue to clean myself up.

The next section was the ECG and I was ushered off into an ante-room for prepping, sanding off of non-essential chest hairs and ritual anointing.  An umbilical of wires connected me to the machine in the corner, not the most expensive machine in the hospital and unfortunately not the one that goes “Bing!”

Once wired for sound I had a somewhat uneventful static ECG whilst considering whether it was rude to nod off, followed by a brief standing one just to ensure that I didn’t?

Now, if you’ve read my Conquest of Avalon post you’ll remember that my leg was in a bad way at the moment.

This appointment was only a week after the ultra and I was not walking well and certainly not running. Oh dear!

The next phase of my stress test was the stressful bit, a treadmill session up to maximum heart rate or cardiac arrest depending on which came first. Seeing as I couldn’t run I was rather concerned about the test and whether it was going to be a waste of money and not give me the answers I was looking for. The cardiologist already spotted my rise in blood pressure, not because of my performance anxiety but more because of my, errrr, performance anxiety!

the machine spews out a ribbon of familiar data into a nondescript plastic bucket of hopes, dreams and coronary heart disease.

We were to follow the Bruce protocol, I think, although I might be guessing, some sort of Australian test regime. The test consists of a series of up to seven stages of running on a treadmill with the speed increasing and the incline increasing. During the test the ECG is doing its thing and your blood pressure is measured. You run up to stage seven if you can manage it or need it to achieve maximum heart rate. Thankfully, the load is generated more by the incline than the speed so despite my injured leg screaming at me to stop I managed to push through the discomfort to stage seven and hit my maximum heart rate.

All the time this is happening the machine spews out a ribbon of familiar data into a nondescript plastic bucket of hopes, dreams and coronary heart disease.

Finally the show is over, the treadmill winds down and everything starts returning to normal as the measuring continues. Eventually the test is complete and the diagnostics can begin.

Cleverly, the machine does quite a lot of the work and any beat that is not ‘correct’ appears to get tagged for further investigation by our experts.

At a first, uneducated glance, there appeared to be quite a few suspect beats but our expert soon explained them all and their cause, and more importantly, their normalness and his lack of concern.

However, there were a couple of tiny concerns regarding ST segment depression at maximum heart rate. His preliminary, and later confirmatory assessment, was nothing more than slightly blocked arteries due to a previous history of smoking and jam doughnut side-effects.

Slightly? Blocked? That simply wasn’t good enough. Were we talking the most insignificant of flow-restricting deposits or was total blockage merely a mixed doner kebab away? Blood pressure was perfect, cholesterol was fine and symptoms were non-existent and the cardiologist was happy.

Still, I wasn’t happy. We have the technology to measure any restriction present so it was time to put on the funny gown and lie still…

I went for a CT scan at St Joseph’s, a hospital I never knew existed. Why, when you fill in forms, do you not only repeat yourself but even the form that you had to fill in and bring with you is simply another version of the one’s you’re now filling in. So, after the destruction of, at the very least, a small sapling I was suitably CT scanned in a giant doughnut with clouds on the ceiling. The GTN spray brought on a monster headache and the injection of the contrast dye made me feel like I’d just eaten a bag of iron filings and simultaneously pissed myself on the inside.

On the bright side, my heart rate was wonderfully slow so beta blockers weren’t necessary.  Ideal patient apparently…

And the result? Still not what I would call definitive but I’m an Engineer not a Cardiologist.

As he says, the CT scan results indicate that my arteries are “absolutely fine”, end of story, go away and carry on with the endurance sports – and that, for me is that episode put to bed.

lub-schtub,

lub-schtub,

lub-schtub,

lub-schtub…