C'MON DUDE...HAVE A HEART

So this morning was my big appointment at the Cardiovascular Institute so that a doctor could make me run on a treadmill for three hours until I either:

A) Passed out from sheer exhaustion or

B) Died of a heart attack.

I showed up early because if there's one thing I've learned after the umpteen zillion doctor visits I've had in the last two months...it's show up early or don't show up at all.

The appointment was for 9 a.m., so I got there at 6:30 a.m.

I was ushered in right at 9 a.m. where we made a stop-off at a scale.

I was fully prepared to hear that I hadn't lost a pound in the last two weeks. After losing three, gaining one back and then checking my weight this past week...I thought I was still just as blubbery as ever.

I've lost five pounds.

That's right, kids...READ 'EM AND WEEP!!!

FIVE STINKING POUNDS!!!

(Uncle Bob twirls around in a circle, showing off his new, svelte figure)

The way I figure it...if I can keep this up, I can lose 70 more lbs. in about six more months.

Then I will be at my ideal weight and won't look like the Pillsbury Doughboy with a bald spot anymore.

I'm then taken to a room where the nurse tells me to take my shirt off and lay down.

Okay.

I'm expecting some hot monkey lovin' at this point. The way she said it in her whiskey-soaked, cigarette-ravaged rasp...I thought I'd at least get a little oral on my exam.

No such luck. She wanted to give me an EKG.

So she hooks all these things up to my naked, heaving bosom. It would have almost been erotic if she hadn't been shooting electricity into my body.

After she's done, she tells me to sit down in a chair and "they'd" be right in.

Say what???

Send the doctor in, that's fine. But don't be bringing the whole freakin' nursing staff on parade in here.

Too late.

In the time I actually saw the doctor, my door was opened up a total of four times by four different people.

I think the nurse ran out to the nurse's station and said "If anybody wants to see a guy with the biggest, palest belly in town, go walk in room 3."

Because they all kept coming in, pretending to look for something, sneaking a peek at my gut, and then leaving.

Finally, a lady walks in who says she's the doctor's assistant. It's her job to ask me a ton of questions about my medical history.

YAYYYY!

So I sit there in my chair...naked from the waist up...having to say that I had never had glaucoma, that I've never had a stroke, etc. I just always say "no" to everything, even if I HAD had it, because I don't think it's anyone's business if I have a burning sensation when I urinate, dammit. They're just going to want me to strip completely naked so they can hold my tallywacker and twist it into a pretzel and see if "that" hurts.

Damn straight it hurts, Doc. You've tied my genitals into a freakin' knot. It hurts just thinking about it.

She finally either got bored or ran out of questions to ask because she got up and left. I sit there and read a year-old issue of "People" magazine until the doctor walks in.

Nice guy...older...wearing a bow tie though. Old doctors shouldn't wear bow ties. It's not cool, it's distracting. I kept wanting to spin it around like an airplane propellor.

He asks me if I'm hear because of my abnormal EKG.

I inform him that this is the first I've heard that my EKG was anything less than normal.

He looks like the cat who killed the canary. He just let the cat out of the bag...who then went and killed a canary.

He was a damned canary killer!

He tried to save himself by saying "Oh...it's not abnormal. It's just a bit peculiar but it's nothing to worry about."

So now he's got me thinking my heart's a bit on the odd side.

Thanks Doc. I needed to hear that. Maybe you could break the news to me that my wife and son are dead in an interpretive dance sequence, you uncaring bastard!

Long story short (heh!) ... I've got to go in Thursday for a stress test, where I have to get hooked up to an IV and walk several miles on a treadmill. The papers say I'll be walking close to 12 miles that day.

Can I get a "YAHOOOOO!!!"?

They're going to shoot me full of some dye that will make my heart turn green or something.

I don't know about you...but a morning of jogging with an IV and having my heart colored green sure does sound appealing, huh?

So I got out of the doctor's office about three hours quicker than I thought I would.

I came to work where I told Wendi about my horrible dream last night where she quit the company and everyone hated me after she left, like I was the reason she left. She laughed, but it was more of a nervous laugh than a real laugh, like she wanted to hear about my heart rather than my stupid dreams.

Edweird and I went to the Logan Farms Ham Museum or whatever it's called for lunch. The place was empty. I perused the menu, not finding ANYTHING within my dietary range. I finally ordered a small chicken salad and wolfed that down. It probably had more fat and junk in it that my usual lunch and will be the sole responsibility of my diet's downfall...but it's something I have to live with. At least until I go to the bathroom.

Finished lunch, went to the Pet Store, bought Maggie a rawhide slipper so that she can chew that up and then be led to believe that every shoe at the house will taste beef basted and chew every shoe we own as well.

And now ... my diabetes is kicking my butt as I desperately try to stay awake.

I've got to make some phone calls. That'll do the trick of waking me up.

Oh yeah.

We're at war.

Yippee.