Report from the doctor

My doctor's appointment was today. This was to follow up on the tests and lab work that was done earlier and enough time had passed that I was feeling pretty confident that he would have nothing but good news. (Remember, if it was bad news, they said I would have heard from them pretty quick.) As usual, the doctor was running behind and my appointment was about 20 minutes late. I say 'as usual' because my experience with doctors is that the good ones are always busy. I'm not suggesting that this doctor is always running late, since this was my first office visit with him. But I digress.

The results of my EKG and blood work are as follows: my good cholesterol levels are good, my bad cholesterol levels are good, my heart rate while exercising is healthy and it's also good while at rest. Physically, the symptoms I report are not consistent with heart disease, which means any chest pains I experience are probably a direct result of stress and not indicative of heart problems. To be on the safe side he is going to schedule another test - an ultrasound or x-ray of my chest just to be sure. But the doctor honestly does not expect to find anything wrong with my heart with this test and is doing it mostly just to be complete. (God bless negligence laws.)

We talked about what else it could be, including things like acid reflux and a few other related conditions. He doesn't think it's acid reflux per se, but wasn't going to say that definitively. Stress seems to be the biggest trigger, so that's the most probable direction for this to go in.

As it turns out, this doctor spent some time in Halifax, so he was interested to learn where I grew up and if I spent time at the Thirsty Duck pub. (I had - lots of time spent, actually.) Overall he asked me a lot of questions and answered all of mine. My only regret is not being diagnosed in Halifax - we could have gone out to the pub after the appointment!