Thanks for contributing your exercise nightmares.

Both…um…suck.

xo

Maybe I should of just said yes and I don’t want to talk about it.

Case in point, moi. Nice over weight white male, just entering that wonderful heart attach age of early forties and beyond. Several years ago I mention to my doctor, who I must admit is a wonderful physician even if he is a little anal as he wants you thoroughly checked out, that heart disease runs in my family. Now I like Howard because we have the same love for science fiction and fantasy novels but man when he gets it in his head to start tests, he goes all out. We start with a simple ECG that then moves into respiratory tests and finally he wants me to take a stress test.

Now for you wonderful people out there that do not know what a stress test is it is not a test that you take at a desk while some caricature of a platoon sergeant starts yelling at you that your a maggot and worse than the lowest form of whale crap that ever sank to the bottom of the ocean. Man I only wish. No the joys of a stress test involved you running on a tread mill while attached to an assortment of wires that monitor heart and breathing rates in a dozen different ways.

Now for those that have met me I am a little over weight, okay maybe more than a little. Exercise is not something that I have actively sought for awhile but I am hoping to change that soonest. So Howard says stress test and I start asking questions like what is it and what does it involve? A stress test, simple version here because there is more strenuous one that involves the injection of barium dye in the blood stream, involves the patient i.e. victim being put on a tread mill for twelve minutes while the speed and incline slowly increase so that more stress is put on the heart so that proper measurements can be taken.

Simple, right?

No.

When I arrived at the test place I had to wait but finally got into the place where the equipment was set up and I was changed into my gym clothes (been awhile since I had gym clothes so I just wore walking shorts and my running shoes.) First thing that happened is the placing of the electrodes with sticky pads.

Now before I forget I have to mention the nurse I had to help with the procedure. If any of you have read ‘One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ would know who Nurse Ratched is. Not the movie as Louise Fletcher is okay but the version in the novel, a nurse in crisp white uniform complete with a starched nurses folded hat in her early sixties. I swear she even read the Nurse Ratched guide to practical nursing.

Now being me I have some nice chest hair, sort of Tom Selleck style. Darlene loves my chest hair more for snuggling reasons and hates the idea of me ever losing it. The first thing Nurse Ratched does is bring over razor and I ask what that is for? She makes a comment about the sticky pads sticking. Now this complete BS because I have taken this test since then and I have never had to remove any hair for it. I then say that my wife actually loves my chest hair and would be upset if was missing. She gives me this patient little smile then proceeds to dry shave six large spots where pads are meant to be placed. So here I stand, an over-weight hairy guy standing there with my shirt off with six shaved circles on chest and stomach. So cute.

Then comes the time to start. I step up and Ratched asks if I am ready and say yes and she starts the machine on slow. Hey I think to myself this isn’t so bad. Even as the speed increase I can handle it. Now remember this day is really a day of first for me and this was just another first. I have never been on a treadmill. Exercise bikes, rowing machines, nautilus equipment, yes. But never a treadmill. So as I am getting the use of this machine I would sometimes hang onto the bars for balance. Not good, as the nurse when then come along and ask me not to touch the bars. I would comply but eventually I would grab the bars again as I started to lose my balance and Ratched would ask me to let go. Now as this was going on the speed of the treadmill was increasing in speed and incline. I am walking faster and faster at the same time mis-judging my balance and having to grab something only to have the nurse tell me to let go.

I have now been at this twelve minutes and the next increment was coming up. My breathing is coming out in gulping gasps and the only sounds I hear is the raging vacuum coming to fill the void where my heart used to be. I have to start running, I hate running, I have to start running and so I get ready to start. Grasping the handles firmly I take first tentative steps toward a runner’s glory when I feel this stinging slap on my hand and Nurse Ratched telling me to let go of the bars. Well I totally lose my balance and step off and state with-out any further adieu, I am done. That is between gasping breathes. She looks at me, does a small sniff and says fine. I can go.

I shakily make back to the car, get in to drive the two minutes home. Get in the house and head towards the washroom thinking the queasiness will disappear any moment only to be disappointed as I hurl my guts out in the toilet.

Fun no, but it did teach me how of shape I was and still am. So there is my story. And hoping to change myself because of it.