The first thing I'll note is that no other patients were masked, and the only masked staff was a single medical assistant. This lack of masking was particularly surprising because I naively thought that cardiology, of all medical spaces, might have a higher masking rate because of the well-documented heart-related risks associated with COVID-19. Add to that, my hospital network is currently in the local news for having its first covid outbreak since ending their mask mandate, so clearly covid risk in medical facilities is still a concern.
Anyway, other than not wearing a mask, my new cardiologist was nice enough, and explained things well. She clarified that the "arrhythmia" seen on my last EKG was a "sinus arrhythmia", which is actually normal! She said she explained this to my medical oncology NP, but still wanted to see me to 1) keep an eye on my heart function after having had Herceptin, and 2) just make sure there's really nothing wrong, since all my EKGs seem to be a little different every time.
She went through a lot of medical history questions, and clarified when I was taking which medications. She confirmed that I did not change medications between my previous EKG and the most recent one. I made a point to mention that I did get covid during that time, and she asked me a lot of questions about fatigue, shortness of breath, activity level, etc. She repeated several times that she "wasn't worried" because, despite all these weird EKGs, I have no physical symptoms of heart problems. (She did not use the word "weird", that's my word.)
At the start of today's appointment, a medical assistant took my blood pressure and did another EKG. The blood pressure was a little high, and the EKG had a small anomaly; the doctor drew a typical heartbeat pattern and said that where my heartbeat would be expected to go up and then level out, it actually went up and then a little down and then leveled out. (In the appointment notes that I can see online, she called it "inferior and anterolateral ST depressions".) She pointed out that EKGs are just a snapshot of heart activity, and she thinks the EKG anomaly was related to my blood pressure being temporarily high just because of the appointment setting (a thing sometimes called white coat hypertension, which I think I may have encountered before).
She did take my blood pressure again, towards the end of my appointment, and lo and behold, it was lower than before. She suggested I take my blood pressure at home (a few times a week, at different times of day, after sitting for 10 minutes, and with my arm resting on a surface), and bring the numbers to my next appointment.
Today's EKG showed no sign of the prolonged QT interval, but the cardiologist did recommend that I stay away from certain medications that may affect QT interval. (She included a list of medications to avoid in the appointment notes that I can see online.)
She also said I should come in for a stress test. I would spend some time on a treadmill, and they'll take measurements before and after. Additionally, I should come back in 1 year for a follow-up.
I made both these appointments before leaving the office. I am pretty sure that the person doing the scheduling at the front desk was the same person who called me before, and she was just as gruff in person as on the phone!
No comments:
Post a Comment