A Special Heart

I finally got the results from my stress test on Wendesday morning. I had worked all Tuesday night and had stayed up for the appointment. Lately I've been having issues sleeping so I was EXHAUSTED. I was so tired I fell asleep in the room waiting for the Dr. to come in. I was a little embarrassed when the nurse practitioner finally walked it, but I quickly recovered and she appologized for being tardy.

She told me my heart looks beautiful. The stress test looked good and my blood pressure at is highest point was still with a normal persons resting blood pressure. She said everything was doing what is was supposed to. I asked her why I was having pain and if it was due to the murmur. She agreed that it was due to the murmur. She said the left valve has 3 little flaps that make up my heart valve. They each are connected to muscle fibers. One of the little flaps is a little late closing. They aren't all in sync with each other causing a small amout of blood to be forced back up the opposite way. When I warm up my heart I could possibly feel the pain because it's trying to get back in sync. I took months off of running because I hate it so much so when I started training again for my tri that's why it started acting up. She said that it's nothing to be concerned about and she too had the same problem and has never had any problems. I asked her about higher elevations and she said that I will have pain and palpitations because my heart is working extra hard because of lack of oxygen at higher elevations.

I have a special heart! I am glad that I finally have some answer. This is exactly what I needed to know. I am happy with the news I got and feel like it's the answer to all the questions I have had.

The 19th is my triathlon and I am scared out of my mind!!!! I'm not sure if I'm completely ready, but too bad I'm doing it anyways. It's going to be a lot of fun to do it with my sister. All I want to do is finish. I don't care about my time or place or really anything as long as I finish the silly race! I can't wait!