I was at the doctor’s for a check-up yesterday, and all seems well, I’m glad to say. All the usual procedures – stethoscope, deep breath, say “ah”, cough, stand on the scale please, fill this, just a tiny little prick (in reference to taking a drop of blood from my fingertip, for the benefit of anyone who thought the doctor was being insulting and inaccurate). I also had an ultrasound of my heart.
I had had an EKG before, but never an ultrasound. An EKG, if you haven’t had one, is the procedure where they wire up your chest and then take readings on something that looks like a lie detector – lots of needles making inky tracks on a moving roll of paper. I found the whole thing interesting and relaxing when I had one, until the nurse, who was standing by the machine watching the readout, suddenly exclaimed “Oh, my God” I sat bolt upright, exclaiming “What’s wrong?” She replied: “My pen has leaked ink all over my jacket pocket.” I didn’t know whether to be annoyed or relieved. Anyway, I digress. No EKG yesterday, but an ultrasound.
Now, I knew all about taking ultrasounds of pregnant women, to ensure that all is well inside -- in fact the first time I ever saw my daughter she was a grey shape among many on a cathode ray screen in a doctor’s office in London. What I wasn’t aware of is just how many applications ultrasounds have now, and are a much used alternative to X-Rays, without all that nasty radiation. So anyway, I let the technician stick a few electrodes to my chest, lay on my left side and he put what looked like a small electric shaver against my skin. There was no sensation at all, other than a slight metallic coldness.
I was facing the wall, away from the machine itself so I couldn’t see the screen – no clumsy cathode ray tubes these days, but a laptop with a lot of extra buttons. But I could hear my heart very well. Now, I always thought, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that a heart sounded pretty much like hearts do on TV dramas – a steady beat, not quite like a drum, but certainly sharp and percussive. Not so! A beating heart sounds like someone walking across a very muddy field in boots. There is far more sloshing and squelching than beating involved. In fact, I was alarmed for a moment. “Is it supposed to sound like that?” I asked the technician. “Yup!” he replied.
I reflected that if I were an ultrasound technician I might have a metronome concealed behind the laptop so that the patient could hear a steady beating, and feel reassured that this was a proper heart-like sound. And if I felt in whimsical mood I could reach out and stop the metronome and at the same time say “Uh oh!” What laughs the patients and I could share together!
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