Just Breathe

This past Friday morning, I had double-header appointments at Boston Medical, an echocardiogram followed by a routine appointment with my wonderful rheumatologist, who has been my specialist for at least two decades, now.

My last echocardiogram was done a couple of years ago, one of those tests I have to repeat occasionally to monitor signs of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a late-stage complication of scleroderma. The only symptom, so far, is extreme shortness of breath if I commence intense aerobic exercising without a serious warm-up. We’ve been watching this for years, now, and I’m on prophylactic medication that seems to be protecting me from worse complications.

Most of the time, the test doesn’t bother me. It’s non-invasive, and, depending on the tech, just mildly uncomfortable. Like I said, depending on the tech. This time, let us say, it was more challenging.

First, the easy part. You lie down on your left side, with your head on a pillow. The lights are dimmed so the tech can see the computer screen more clearly. A transducer, which looks like a short, hand-held rod with a gel-covered rolling ball on top, is pressed against your ribcage, neck and diaphragm, to send high frequency sound waves through your chest wall. It’s like an ultrasound for your heart. The sound waves bounce back to the computer, which translates them into moving pictures of your heart muscle. Occasionally, the tech will turn on the audio, and you can hear your heart beating away, kind of a squishy, pumping sound that seems to reverberate from a deep well.

Now for the hard part. You have to hold your breath during certain parts of the test, so that your diaphragm doesn’t cause your heart to move around and your lungs aren’t so full that they interfere with the heart imagery. I’ve never had an issue with this in the past, but my tech on Friday had a very specific way that he wanted me to empty my lungs, first, and then take in only a small sip of air. Then hold. And hold. And hold. While he pressed really hard with the transducer on my ribcage. I have no padding there. It hurt. And I couldn’t wave my hand or ask, “Can I breathe now?”

I really started to wonder, at a few points, if I would actually be able to hold my breath long enough. Fortunately, each time, just as I thought I wouldn’t make it, he said I could breathe again. It was also reassuring to hear my heart beating when I felt like my lungs would burst. “You’re doing great,” he said. I guess so. Test results will be available this week.

By the end of the half-hour, I was very glad to get dressed and head over to the Rheumatology Department. The sun was bright, the air crisp. As I caught up with my rheumatologist, who, like me, is in his sixties, we chatted briefly about retirement. To my relief, he has no plans of retiring anytime soon. This time, I needed no permission to breathe.

Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.

Image Credit: Eric Witsoe