A Card In Case I Glow In The Dark

I wasn’t ready to walk to exhaustion so this was a pharmacologic stress test. Drugs were pushed through an IV to fool my body into thinking I’d been working hard on a treadmill.

Does that sound weirdly scary to you? It did to me!

A strange thing happened on my way to back surgery. The pre-op EKG had an inverted T-wave… whatever that means.

After looking at older EKGs, then taking three more, the cardiologist was reasonably sure it was a false alarm. Of course there was no way to absolutely confirm that without additional testing. That’s why I was in the hospital Thursday night instead of Friday morning.

Test, test, test. Poke, poke, poke. Sleep? You must be kidding.

After my surgery, in an effort to dot all the “i”s and cross all the “t”s, my newly acquired cardiologist arranged for a stress test. I wasn’t physically ready to walk to exhaustion so this was a pharmacologic stress test.

Drugs were injected through an IV. They fooled my body into thinking I’d been working hard on a treadmill.

The brew they squirted into me was also radioactive!

Sound weirdly scary to you? It did to me.

Like I said, the original EKG was wrong and this test only served to confirm that. After the electrodes were removed I was given the card you see at the top of this entry.

“Hand this to the TSA,” I was told.

The card was mine in case I had to fly over the next few days. There was enough radioactive fluid in my bloodstream for me to show up as a walking dirty bomb!

Strangest identification card ever.

6 thoughts on “A Card In Case I Glow In The Dark”

  1. Many state and local police cars now have radiation detectors. If you get pulled over because you triggered it, you REALLY want to have that card with you.

  2. They usually use Technetium 99 which is a gamma emitter, hence why the Police can see it in their vehicles. Technetium mimics the action of Potassium in living cell so working tissue looks hot to the gamma camera. Tissue that isn’t working, either ischemic tissue or scar tissue from an older cardiac event doesnt take up as much Technetium, hence looks cold to the gamma camera. A chemical like Adenosine, which dilates your blood vessels simulates the cardiac work load. Rest images are can be taken days later to see if any cold images light up; those areas would potentially be candidates for revascularization, either via angioplasty or open heart surgery.

  3. SEVERAL THOUGHTS OCCURRED TO ME RE: THE CARD PICTURE:

    1 – THE CARD DOES NOT HAVE A DOCTORS SIGNATURE, DATE, OR PHONE NUMBER FOR VERIFICATION
    2 – THE IMAGE COULD BE EASILY COPIED AND MANIPULATED BY A PERSON OF EVIL INTENT
    3 – IF ACCEPTED BY TSA, AN EVIL PERSON MIGHT BE ABLE TO TAKE A RADIOACTIVE DEVICE ON
    ….BOARD AN AIRPLANE….BOOM !!!

    I’M JUST SAYING….

    1. But Peter, you are only seeing one side of the card.

      Just a guess, but I’ll bet the other side has the information you sited. At least I hope it does.

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