Success?

The stress test is all done and dusted. I even think I might have passed. Maybe.

Well I guess I didn't die, so from that perspective the test was definitely successful. Did the test give me a clean bill of health, well not sure, but I think it wasn't anything too damning. On the whole I think that is positive.

When I have done stress tests in the past I have never been that sure of the results immediately afterwards. The attending Doctor is usually pretty coy about the results because you aren't actually their patient, they are just there to supervise the test, they usually leave the analysis of the results up to your specific Doctor. Today though my attending Doctor was quite chatty and while she wasn't going to give me a solid answer one way or another, she was happy to talk about what she saw and in the end she didn't see anything that concerned her. Taking that as a win.

It sounds like there were some ectopic beats early in the piece at lower heart rates. Those themselves were not that surprising, although they were very annoying. I have found over the last couple of years that I get increased funny rhythms when I am tired, fatigued or stressed, or when I have had lots of coffee. This morning I was both tired and stressed and so I wasn't surprised by the sensation of my heart skipping a beat. Annoyed for sure that it would happen today of all days given I usually have no symptoms, but surprised I was not. Thankfully though those extra beats didn't concern the Doctor too much.

Apparently once I got going and the HR climbed those ectopics smoothed right out, which is great news from my perspective. Really the purpose of this test for me is to see whether exercise stimulates a wonky heart beat since that is what happened back in 2017. That specifically didn't happen today, which is why I think the test result is most likely a positive one.

We pushed pretty hard too. I think I went longer on this test then any of my previous two. Basically the test protocol is that you start walking on a treadmill up a 10 degree slope and then every 3 minutes the slope increases by 2 degrees and the speed goes up. This time around I got to 19 minutes and ended up running up a 22 degree slope. That was further than I have previously done and it was  was enough to get my HR up to 174bpm, which I felt was probably enough, certainly my legs did. On the way up to 174 there was nothing the Doctor saw that worried her, in fact she said there were no ectopics at all which is great news. She had read my history and was wondering if she was going to see some funky things going on and to be honest I think she was a little disappointed. Still, kind of glad to disappoint her.

The final outcome of the test is going to have to wait a while until I hear a final analysis by Dr Stobie my cardiologist, however, so far I think it sounds positive. Fingers crossed the final result stays that way.