Week 4

Week four is the week where the train wreck occurs.  I hardly ever work out on Mondays because I know that on Tuesday when I meet with Linus that my butt is going to royally be kicked.  So Tuesday I go to the gym to meet with Linus and we start our work out.  We do the warm up on the cardio machine do the little medicine ball toss on the wall body warm up and start hitting it hard.  We did a full circuit and then about half way through the second work out it happens again.  The third time!  I start to feel nauseous again!  I tell Linus and he puts me on the treadmill and asks me what I ate.  He's concerned that I may not be getting enough calories before our workouts.  I tell him that I ate a banana.  He goes and grabs a protein shake from the gym store for me.  I drink it while walking it out on the tread mill.  I come clean with Linus and tell him that our first work out together that I passed out.  Linus is concerned and tells me that I should see a doctor.

Great!  A doctor!  I have let myself get in such bad shape that I need to see a doctor!  So I go home to face the music.  I tell my wife about feeling nauseous again while working out.  I also come clean to her about passing out four weeks ago.  She is rightfully very concerned for my health and well being.

Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning it is snowy but I still call the doctor because I need to get my exercise on.    They do have an appointment with my primary care physician at 9:45.  I tell them I'll take it!  So I head out to the doctor and walk in.  They take me back and do an EKG and a blood test to see if I have diabetes...  Diabetes!  I can't tell you how disappointed I was in myself to even have to be tested for diabetes.  I was in pretty good shape growing up.  Yeah I never ate well, but I was always active and I was "healthy enough".  Now I possibly have diabetes because of my eating habits and weight?!?!  This is horrible.

So I got to have my arm sufficiently drained of blood and I also got to have those little sticky pads stuck to my chest for an ekg.  My ekg came back abnormal.  I asked my doctor what did that mean and he said...  "It's not normal".  That was encouraging that my doctor is a walking thesaurus.  He didn't want to go into it because he didn't want to be an alarmist.  For me not know what exactly is happening, especially when it comes to my heart is worse the unknown.  He said he was referring me to a cardiologist.  I said the sooner the better for an appointment.  I said I could go anywhere I just want to get this taken care of.    This all happened on January 27 and the first appointment they could make for me was on February 10th.  I couldn't exercise or do anything physical until I saw the cardiologist.  This is unacceptable in my book.  It's my heart and all I know is it's abnormal!

As soon as I left the doctors office I called the cardiologist that they referred me too.  It turns out because of the snow they had and opening that afternoon!  Never having been to a cardiologist I asked if I needed to wear tennis shoes and exercise clothes.  The receptionist wasn't sure but suggested that I do for in case I needed to do a stress test.  I could tell her I was already more than a little stressed!

I called my wife and told her everything that was going on.  We decided that she should go with me to the cardiologist for an extra set of ears.

We pull up to the cardiologist's office and are seen pretty quickly.  She asked me if I have any family who has "suddenly died"...  Random question so I try to narrow that down a little bit.  I asked, "Like a heart attack?"  She said no like they were playing a sport and they fall out and die.  I told her I wasn't aware of any family members suddenly dieing.  She was concerned that I have a thick heart.  Apparently when you have a thick heart when you exercise you tend to suddenly die.  That's encouraging...  So she wanted me to have a ultrasound of my heart and to do a stress test.

They started with shaving fun designs in my chest hair and the putting these large sticky pads on my chest,  they remind me of large suction cups, like ones you find on shower mirrors that stick to the tile.  Then the ultra sound lady was really nice but it was a ploy because she then jabbed in in the sides and chest with a greasy ultra sound device.  It was not a comfortable experience.  She also took my blood pressure.  After jabbing me in my chest and side for what seemed like 30 minutes she put me on the treadmill for my stress test.  My poor wife was in the room with me and the first thing she thinks about, she tells me after the fact, is the thick heart and that this could very well be the end for me.

So here I am, I've lost some weight but I haven't lost 70lbs in 4 weeks or anything so I'm still large and in charge and they put me on a treadmill with no shirt.  I honestly don't care that they have to look at me shirtless running on a treadmill but They have a mirror right in front of me.  To make matters worse the only thing I can see in the mirror is my neck down.  This is awesome!  I get to watch myself jiggle while being on the treadmill.  This is really turning out to be a great day!

The directions that ultra sound stress test lady give me are that every three minutes the treadmill will go up and speed up.  I'm thinking, I've been working out for a month I'm going to go for a long time.  The directions should have been, after the first three minutes the treadmill will go all the way up so it will feel like you are climbing Mount Everest and then every three minutes it will speed up so you can't walk but yet you can't run either because you will be at that awkward speed.

So I will bear you the ugly details but something that is fun is that also every three minutes they have to take my blood pressure too.  So here I am in all my glory looking at myself in the mirror, sweating, jiggling, trying to keep my arm still so my blood pressure can be checked with my wife sitting behind me not looking because she thinks any minute now I am going to fall out.  Finally I say I have had enough.  I immediately have to run off the treadmill and onto the torture table where I get jabbed in the ribs and chest again so we can see what my heart looks like stressed.

After this wonderful event they then get to rip off the wonderfully large suction cups that I was assured beforehand were the most expensive ones they can buy because they want to make sure they stick...  Awesome...

So once I leave this room I get to go await to hear the verdict from the doctor.  The good news she delivered is that I don't have a thick heart and that my heart actually looks really good.  The issues is this...  When I am resting my blood pressure is in the normal range.  However, when I exercise it spikes to like 220/100, which is apparently bad...  Then when I stop it crashes, which is also not good.  So the solution, beta blockers.  So I now have to take a pill for a long time.  I can't do anything physically active for 4-6 days.  I heard that I also can't lift weight over my head.  I should have asked for clarity because my wife heard that I can't life weight at all...

I emailed my trainer when I got home.  Once I could get active again we were going to do cardio for my next week.  Moral of the story if you pass out or feel nauseous, tell someone, go see a doctor!