Old at Heart

Update on the ongoing bizarre saga of my crusty old blood vessels: today I had an ultrasound of my carotid arteries. It is weird indeed to go under the wand for something other than pregnancy--no one gasps with excitement when your arteries appear onscreen.

My Carotid Artery--A Dramatization

For those who are uninitiated to my weird luck, an ultrasound tech scanning for an unrelated condition a few months back noticed that I had calcification of my aorta. This is common in people who a. have high blood pressure and cholesterol readings and b. are old. I am neither.

Still, despite my rock-bottom cholesterol and BP, they thought it was best to be safe and brought me back in to look at my carotids. Apparently, with the carotids so close to the surface of the skin, it's really easy to see if they're junked up at all. And if they are, that means there's probably something to this whole atherosclerosis thing. If not, whatever is hanging out in my aorta is just a fluke, or a misdiagnosis. Or something.

Anyway, today the nice people at UCSF Mount Zion checked out my circulatory system up close and personal. It took an hour of poking things into my neck and clicking keys. I was getting fidgety, but the ultrasound tech told me that I was the easiest case she'd ever had--all of the other patients who undergo this reading are so old that they have humps on their backs and can't lay straight, and can't move their necks at all.

Should I feel better, or worse? I'm not sure.

But hopefully we will have good results and years of fun with the old ticker, and I won't have to revisit Mount Zion until I have my requisite back hump in place.