Beltane Closing Moon
Drove back from the echo cardiogram on Interstate 70, turning off at Co. 74 into Evergreen. Rock mitigation had US 285 one way and after my 4pm appointment I would have hit it at rush hour.
Instead I ate at Sushi Win in Evergreen, overlooking front range mountains, some of which looked like old shield volcanoes. Looking at them while I waited for my spring roll and sashimi deluxe, I scrolled through (in my mind) the living images of my heart that I had just seen.
Yes, for the second time this month I had a major diagnostic exam, first the prostate biopsy and now the heart echo. Noah, my sonographer, was a hip looking guy in black scrubs, spiky but neat hair and a pleasant manner. He talked to me throughout the exam.
Awe. That was my heart, beating at that moment. I could, for those 25 minutes or so, look inside my own body. Think about that. The body remains sealed, even to those who inhabit it. Looking inside is a taboo. I read a book by a surgeon who said that overcoming that taboo was necessary to surgical training.
The valves looked so tiny, so frail fluttering away in a steady rhythm, pumping my blood, taking it in from the venous return and pumping it back out, oxygenated by the lungs to the rest of the body. It’s miraculous, I said.
Yes, Noah said, that organ amazes me each time I do this. Everybody’s is different.
7-10 days from now I’ll get a call from my primary care doc, Lisa Gidday. She’ll relay the findings after Tatiana Tsvetkova, the cardiologist, reads the echo. Then you’ll get an official diagnosis, Noah said.
Not done yet, however. I still have to wear a holter monitor. I get fitted for that another time. More fun with organs.
