According to my cardiologist, my EKG is fucked up *, will permanently be fucked up, and is completely unfuckedupable. And because it is fucked up...see that mean right hook above?...she told me that they couldn't give me a regular stress test--where you get on a treadmill and they try to get you to run fast enough that you'll die. On the other hand, she said that she needed to see my heart under stress test conditions to figure out why I was having so much pain on a regular basis, so she told me that I was going to have an alternate kind of stress test: they would inject me with drugs which would stress my heart the same way that intense exercise would.
Well. I've taken my fair share of drugs during my youth, but I didn't like the sound of that at all. But since I didn't have a choice in the matter (other than E. None of the Above, which could result in my nascent demise), I showed up for the test.
I confessed my trepidations to the nurse, and she assured me that there was nothing to it, that my heart would not begin to beat at an insane pace, that it would not last very long, and that at most I might feel a little bit flushed. I felt relieved and began to relax.
Unfortunately, five seconds after the drugs were injected into me, I discovered that she had lied.
Almost immediately I felt like I couldn't breathe, my head began to pound, and I thought that I was going to throw up. I sat in the chair staring at my "live" fucked up EKG on screen for fifteen minutes or so, absolutely miserable, and when that was over I was taken to another room where I sat in a chair and a huge camera was pressed up against my chest, so tightly that I could not take a deep breath. I was told that I would have to be completely still during this process, which would take 8 minutes. It seemed like 80. And when that was over, I was sent back to the Men's Waiting Room (hmmm) for a brief respite, then sent back to the huge camera for another squishing. This time the nurse came back about a minute before the session was supposed to end and told me that the camera had fucked up and that she would have to start over. So another 8 (80) minutes.
Back to the waiting room.
My head was still pounding, but I could breathe and didn't feel like vomiting, so when another guy in the room wanted to chat, I was up to the task. I quickly found out that he was a private airplane pilot, and that he had formerly been a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War. As we chatted, I mentioned that I was currently reading a book about The Pacific War Theater of World War II (the three volume The Pacific Trilogy by Ian W. Toll), and we then had a nice little discussion about the merits and demerits of the Japanese fighter plane, the Zero. I told him the story I'd read about how because of lack of infrastrucutre the newly built Zeroes were taken to the airfield by oxen, and he seemed delighted by that and said he'd never heard of that before. Pilot Guy then said something like, "I can't remember what U.S. plane finally surpassed the Zero." I knew I had read about this in Toll's book, but wasn't confident that I remembered the answer. "Was it the Hellcat?" He said he didn't think that was it. (Checking back now, it looks like it was: HERE.) Then something about Ukraine came on the news on the tv that hovered over our heads. Pilot Guy immediately pivoted to that, saying that he hoped that it wouldn't come to us sending troops to die, and then said that he wouldn't trust Biden to lead us in a war. "I'd trust Trump," he said. I usually try not to react to situations like that, figuring that there's nothing to be gained (other than ire) by showing my cards and that I might learn something if I just listen, but it was not to be so today, because he immediately quashed himself, saying something along the lines of, "I didn't mean to get political," and then shortly after that he was called away for another part of his test and he didn't come back.
I wish we could have talked more. I mean, here was a guy who struck me as intelligent and good natured, and a guy who had some serious military experience...during wartime...and yet he was clearly pro-Trump. And why on earth would he think that a guy whose only military experience was running from the draft was qualified to lead troops into battle? I suppose the answer would be that he saw Trump as decisive and bold, but I would like to hear Pilot Guy's reasons for coming to that conclusion.
Well...maybe next stress test we'll bump into each other again. Assuming we're both alive a year from now.
* Not a direct quote.
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