Yesterday I had my cardiology stress test, which was recommended at my last cardiology appointment.
My cardiologist had told me that the doctor on duty to attend to the test may not be her, and it wasn't. It was another woman, who was masked! She was the only other person in the office, besides me, to wear a mask.
I was told to avoid caffeine for 2 hours before the appointment, and to wear sneakers and comfortable clothes.
There were 2 people in the room with me the whole time, a nurse (I think, she may have been a medical assistant, I'm not sure) and a technician. They were both very nice, but not talkative, which was okay with me.
They had me change into a johnny from the waist up. The nurse put a bunch of leads onto my torso, all of them connected to a belt they had me wear, so the wires didn't get tangled. They did an echocardiogram and an EKG and also took my blood pressure, for baseline values.
Before we could start, we had to wait for the cardiologist to come in and give the okay. The nurse told me the doctor was in with another patient, and we actually waited for like 15 minutes, in almost complete silence. Haha. It was fine. I really don't mind when doctors are late, because I always figure, if I'm the patient the doctor is with, I'd want them to take the time to make sure I got the care I needed.
The stress test was divided into 3-minute intervals, designed to quickly increase a person's heart rate while they walk. There was a treadmill right next to the examination table, and in front of the treadmill was a big poster showing a numerical scale, with numbers corresponding to descriptions like "very light" and "very, very hard". During each 3-minute interval, the nurse asked me to describe the level of exertion I felt, and she also took my blood pressure while I walked.
First, the treadmill was set to a slow speed and small incline. For this first part, I think I said the effort felt "light".
After 3 minutes, the treadmill incline and speed automatically increased. I described the exertion at this point as in between "fairly light" and "fairly hard" - it wasn't either, it just felt fine.
After 3 more minutes, the treadmill incline and speed automatically increased again. This time, I think I said the exertion felt "fairly hard". Towards the end of this 3-minute interval, the cardiologist said I was doing well above average!
The nurse asked if I wanted to do the next level, which many people don't even get to. She said the setting would be very fast, and some people choose to jog it. I was curious to see how fast the last setting would be, so I said yes to trying it. At the 3-minute mark, the treadmill incline and speed increased again. I did it as a very fast walk, which I described as "very hard"! They had me do it only for 2 minutes, instead of 3.
After a total of 11 minutes, they stopped the treadmill, and I was instructed to keep walking until the treadmill came to a complete stop. Then I had to lie down on the exam table and roll onto my left side as quickly as possible so that the technician could do an echocardiogram while my heart rate was at its peak. The nurse also took some EKG readings and measured my blood pressure.
The cardiologist looked at all the data in real time and said nothing jumped out at her as problematic. She was very reassuring, but was also careful to say that it would take a few hours to review the details, and she would send the report to my cardiologist.
Back at home, later the same day, I was able to see my report in the online patient portal. The word "normal" appeared a lot, so I hope it means everything is fine! The only thing I really noticed was that it said my ejection fraction is 50-55%. Back when I was getting regular echocardiograms while on Herceptin, my baseline pre-Herceptin ejection fraction was 63%, and my last measurement after stopping Herceptin was 57%. So, it does appear that my ejection fraction never fully recovered from Herceptin. I'll have to remember to ask my cardiologist if this is something I should be concerned about.
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