Careful What You Wish For….

Ok, I didn’t actually WISH for this but the title more or less fits anyway. Today I got an unexpected call from Michelle at the GP’s office. She wanted to share the results from the echocardiogram. I thought we had covered that in our last call but apparently not.

She said the test revealed a valve issue. She wanted to make sure that I did make an appointment with the cardiologist. I told her I had an appointment for July 1^st. I have to admit my brain went a little funky when she told me this and I probably asked her three times before hanging up if she was sure I didn’t need to get there earlier. Each time I asked she replied very patiently that no, my appointment was fine but given the potential long term consequences she wanted to make sure I HAD the appointment. She apologized and said she wasn’t allowed to give anything more over the phone. She offered to make an appointment with the GP if I wanted more explanation before going to the cardiologist but I declined. On the one hand more detail might help and then again it might not since I can’t get to see the cardiologist any earlier anyway. I’m tempted to call cardiologist and see if they can move my appointment up in light of this but I’m too discombobulated to think about that right now.

So part of me feels vindicated for giving up the marathon and stopping my running and cycling activities. Another part of me went from feeling 53 to 80 in less than 60 seconds. When I told Dave that he reminded me that if I’m 80 he is 93. That’s not really fair to him so I’ll see if I can improve my outlook sooner rather than later. My poor boss (the only one in my office who knows about this) and I had a meeting shortly after I heard from Michelle and the first words from my boss were “You don’t look so good”. I told her about the call. Except for the 80-93 thing, she and Dave had the same comments more or less. “You were smart to go early” and “Medical technology and medicine are pretty advanced these days it will probably be fine”. All good and mirrors my own thoughts but quite frankly it would be much more comforting if it weren’t ME we were talking about.

*HUGE SIGH*. Ok. I know that to avoid going absolutely bonkers over the next month I have to avoid hyper focusing on this. I know I should probably be telling myself “Nothing has changed. It’s just words right now. Physically you are the same person you were yesterday. It’s just the words ‘there is a valve issue’ that are making you feel like crap.” But I think it may take few days for that to work.

My running friends will understand this analogy best – right now I feel like I’m in taper mode. It’s the final weeks before the race and you start to feel all kinds of things that may or may not be real. And you just don’t know which is which. If I were really tapering for a race I’d be writing it all off to that. But I’m not so I guess the only thing to do for the next 5 ½ weeks is to keep smiling keep moving and try be aware - but not obsessed with - what’s going on inside.

The practical side of me has one more thing to be pissed off about. I bought a brand new bike last November L I’m sure I’ll be allowed or feel comfortable riding it again but for now all I can  think of is I HATE that I spent money and it’s just sitting there looking pretty and collecting dust. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.