4/10/07 Echo

I saw the neatest thing today! I got to watch my own heart beat! I had my echo appointment today, which is basically just an ultrasound of my heart. There it was, beating away, complete with whooshing sounds that were remarkably similar to my fish tank pump. (I guess a pump is a pump). Anyway, it was pretty cool. (I asked the technician if I could have a picture of it, like what they do with pregnant women, but she said no, they didn't do that. Oh well. If I didn't already know what it was supposed to be, I would have guessed that it was a picture of a hurricane anyway). My doctor will officially interpret the results, but I'm guessing that the ol' ticker is behaving itself, since the technician didn't run from the room or anything. She did, however, have some trouble getting my heart rate slowed down enough to get a clear reading on it. Seems that today my resting heart beat was about 115. (Quirk #346: I have the heart rate of a hummingbird). She spent quite a few minutes making me take deep breaths to slow it down, and right as she got it to about 93, someone knocked on the door and it shot my heart rate back up again. (Quirk # 347: Apparently I have an as yet undiscovered fear of knocking). The lube has a distinctive playdoh-ish odor, even after I wiped it off, but all in all, I rather enjoyed myself. Echocardiograms: two thumbs up on the neat-o scale.