My new constant companion

{Photography brought to you by: Eva Webb. Big cheeks brought to you by: Genetics and too much ice cream.}

Here is a little riddle for you:

I am small and black and hang around your neck. My wires will hang down the middle of your chest and make weird bumps under your shirt. I beep if you leave the house without my other half. I am...

a heart monitor.

And I am the lucky wearer. Along with the Holy Ghost, this little baby is my constant companion. For 3 whole weeks. For better or for worse.

I try not to be annoyed by it. When I get irritated by the electrodes and the stickiness they leave on my skin, or want to scream when I turn over in the night and it wraps around my neck the wrong way, I try to tell myself that it's for a good cause. It will read my heart patterns and detect whether or not I have something wrong.

After an appointment with my cardiologist (if that sentence doesn't make me feel 85 years old, I don't know what will), I was relieved to hear that he would do lots of tests to get to the bottom of my weird problem, if there is a bottom. And if there is a problem.

Last week I went in for an echocardiogram (which, I learned, after sounding really foolish to the nurse, is different than an EKG) - an ultrasound on my heart. It was kind of strange going into a room with an ultrasound monitor and seeing something on the screen other than a fetus. In fact, that may be the last ultrasound I ever have, come to think of it. Normally when I have an ultrasound, I am thinking about the miracle of life in terms of my baby. This time, I was struck at the miracle of life in my OWN body. I watched my own heart beating (regularly, thank heavens) and the valves opening and shutting. It made me grateful to be alive.

So I guess if the worst thing I have to deal with is walking through the grocery store beeping like a senior citizen with a bad hearing aide, then life isn't so bad.