My heart murmur was detected in early childhood and I joined the "family club" which consisted of my father and my father's father, of members of the family with noticeable murmurs.  From my early 20s onward, I was always aware of my shortness of breath and tendency toward dizziness.  No matter how fit I was, it never went away.  As a teen I excelled in yoga.  In my early 20s I surfed and took long bike rides in the Sierra foothills around Monticeto.  I played hundreds of hours of tennis, went hiking, even got back into figure skating at Oak Bay Rec after a long lay off a few years back... but no matter what I did, the shortness of breath was always a part of my experience and I just always felt like I was out of shape and couldn't seem to do anything about it.

In 2000 my hypertrophic cardiomyopathy was formally diagnosed because I moved to Canada and immigration wanted me checked out.  These are some of the tools of the trade when it comes to diagnosing, measuring and understanding HCM.  Unfortunately I let some information scare me in the years since and really did get out of shape but I plan on fixing that now that I'm protected.

Siemens Definition Flash dual-source CT Scanner

This is the brand new scanner that I had my Cardiac Angiogram CT scan done on, the first day of operation at Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria, BC.

The Siemens rep was even on hand and available for questions, but mostly I just had comments on how nice the new machine was, how impressive it's abilities were, and how lucky I knew I was to get the new machine.

This particular scanner has extremely low dose requirements and has very high image quality.  This is the actual machine I was tested in and I took the pic myself.

GE MRI magnetic resonance imaging scanner

This is the MRI machine I spent over an hour in.  You can see how much smaller the bore (donut hole) is on an MRI compared to the relatively roomy CT scanner.  This machine took significantly more concentration and focus not only to remain calm but to maintain my accuracy on the breath-holds, which lasted about 85% of the scanning period.

MRI scanning is a very noisy business, but I opted out of the music program because I had to do 10-20 second breath holds throughout my scanning period and it would have been cut off for the start and stop instructions a hundred times, which didn't sound like a relaxing option to me.  This is the actual machine I was tested in and I took the pic myself.

ECG Electrocardiogram

ECG machine and printout.  Will get some printouts up in the Gallery as they become available.

 

Doppler Ultrasound Echocardiogram

The most memorable thing about this cardiac diagnostic and measuring test is that it hurts.  Ultrasound is traditionally non-invasive and while that's technically true (it means no surgery) the pain sure invades me with the prolonged super high pressure the technician needs to use to get good shots.  I think this must be much easier for men who have a lot less to get through in that area.