More health-related googling and blogging for me.
Transesophageal Echocardiogram
Basically, I have to have one of these soon to see what’s actually going on inside my heart.
Today I went to the cardiologist (Dr. Yee, Cardiac Care Center, Methodist Hospital) to talk about the results of my recent echocardiogram. While I was there, he was interested in finding out how my heart reacts to stress, so he had me stay and and do a stress echo, which is the same thing as last week, only with exercise. Basically they do an echo, then the put you on a treadmill to get your heart rate up as high as possible, then they lay you back down and do another echo while your heart rate is way up. It wasn’t as fun as the last one; it was exhausting.
They were able to learn a lot more about what’s going on, but they don’t have a really detailed picture of the architecture of my heart, which is where the Transesophageal Echocardiogram will come in. Unfortunately, what that involves is sticking a tube down my throat and doing an ultrasound from inside my body, which means I have to be put under and on an IV, etc. I have to have some one take me and pick me up from the hospital, etc. More complicated and stressful.