Stressing Out about the Stress Test

Because I’m a self-supporting writer and artist, until I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I couldn’t afford medical tests that weren’t absolutely necessary. Unlucky as my diagnosis was, however, I did luck out with an excellent breast and cervical cancer program that paid for, among other things, my labs.

That’s when my primary physician discovered my high cholesterol and prescribed a statin. I resisted, having had painful reactions to other preventative drugs. So for two years now he’s been warning that I am at high risk for heart disease and urging me take a stress test.

Having gone through the medical system in a serious way with breast cancer, I wasn’t ready for a rerun unless it was seriously necessary. I said I would take a stress test when I showed even the smallest symptom of heart disease beyond a high cholesterol count which, being genetic, I’d probably had all my life.

My doctor was doing what he needed to do to take care of me, from genuine concern, and I was also doing what I strongly felt I needed do to take care of me. When these two efforts conflict, the result—for me, anyway—is high anxiety, also a substantiated risk for heart disease. So, last November, to end the standoff, I went to a cardiologist who scheduled the test.

I really stressed out about that stress test. What if I found out that I needed surgery? What if I had to go on a statin and experienced irreversible side effects? What if I needed further, invasive tests?

Two months ago—last November 14—I took the treadmill stress test. It wasn’t the quickie workout I was expecting. Instead, it involved the IV delivery of a radioactive substance, two one-hour waiting periods, a period in the treadmill room with 12 electrodes fastened to my chest, and two 15-minutes periods (before and after the treadmill) lying motionless under a huge camera that reminded me of the radiation machine I’d stared at through 34 sessions.

Several days after the test, I was seeing my primary physician for sore feet from too much dancing, when he handed me a stress test report so technical that I couldn’t understand it. I asked him what it meant and if I’d passed, but he wouldn’t tell me.

“It’s complicated,” he said. “Ask your cardiologist.”

For two months after that I worried that “complicated” meant a “complication,” steeling myself for bad news. (I had to postpone my December appointment with my cardiologist when I went to Florida.)

Yesterday, January 11, I finally found out: I didn’t “pass” my stress test—I aced it. The 10.5 minutes I lasted on the treadmill was longer than my cardiologist expected, and my METS score, which somehow measures workload, wowed him at 12.8. According to an article in the medical journal Chest, which is published by the American College of Chest Physicians), a METS score of 7 is a low pass, and anything over 10 is excellent. My left ventricle was clear, my heart was pumping a normal amount of blood, and my heartbeat and blood pressure were normal.