Heart Sounds
Several weeks back I had my annual visit with my cardiologist. He’s a nice young fellow who always takes time to explain things. As he was listening to my heart, there was a moment when he lingered. That’s the only way to describe it. It felt different than all the other times people have listened to my heart and lungs. But he didn’t say anything, so I didn’t say anything. Then on my way out they told me I needed to update by echocardiogram. I was instantly convinced he heard something, and it was too deadly to tell me until he had more proof.
After a reschedule, I finally had the ultrasound last week. The reports hit my digital file before I heard from the doctor. Not a good idea, really, especially when you can start searching all the things they list. There were lots of words about valves and leaking and that sort of thing. Luckily, all of them used the adjective mild, but that sounds pretty subjective. So, naturally I worried. Because why not? It’s my heart and at some point it might decide to quit and maybe this was it. Then I got the call from my doctor. My echo looked good. Whew.
It was then I realized the mild disfunction and regurgitation was simply what one might expect from a nearly 78 year old heart. Wear and tear. A leak here and leak there. Still, it got me thinking about what I’ll call the he’ll-be-missed picture, the one people might use after I die. My daughter thought it would probably be me hiking or playing my guitar, and I thought that sounded good. But it occurred to both of us we were really at the mercy of the people doing the remembering and the best we could hope for was that they cared enough to use a good picture. She had a story about a man who passed and the best anyone could come up with was an old bitmapped ID picture. Of course, he’s dead and what does he care, but it’s just something to think about when things start leaking in your heart.