So, the story so far. Went to doctor. Was sent for routine ECG to be safe before starting proper training. Something unusual showed up on first ECG, got sent for more tests. That’s the very summarised version of events. End result, a trip through the snow to St Vincent’s Private Hostpital and their cardiology department.

First up, and Echocardiogram. This is (in my laymans understanding of the procedure) basically an ultrasound (like you’d get if you were pregnant) but of the heart. It was really cool watching it, thought it mostly just looked like blobs and bits and bobs to me. You could however see the valves opening and closing, which was gruesome if intriquing! Then the grossest/coolest part, where the technician amplified the sound of the heart and you could hear the blood squelching about. It sounded disgusting anyway, but even more so when you knew it was blood pumping about! I asked if I could get a recording of it to play on the radio show. He said no. Bastard.

Then I had a stress test ECG. This is basically an ECG test but done when you’re walking/running on a threadmill. It was harder work than I was expecting. Every 3 minutes the threadmill gets faster and the incline gets greater. the idea is to monitor your heart rate up to your max rate or something (I got lost on the technical jargon). In my case, this meant getting my pulse up to 191, which seemed quite high to me! In fact, I didn’t get up passed 187, because it just stayed at 187 for about a minute, then the nurse said she didn’t need it to hit 191 so I could stop if I wanted, which I did!

On the plus side, the Echo is covered by my health insurance, and on the downside, the Stress Test ECG wasn’t and cost €200. The woman at reception told me that no health insurance (except ESB) actually covered it, which made me feel a little bit better.

The consultant cardiologist is supposed to look at the results and send out their report in the next 2-3 working days, so hopefully we’ll have a final answer by the middle of next week (Day 74 of Marathon Training is a Friday FYI)

St Vincents, heart checkers