Good Morning?!?

(Old pic) My puppies trying to convince me to get up.

I am not a morning person, and early mornings are my least favorite part of the day.  But if I want to workout I must get up early in the morning.  Why you ask???  Well mostly, because I have a full-time job that keeps me away from home until 4:30 pm and a family I need to take care of when I get home.  Of course I am pretty sure my family would be okay with me not being home until later and they would be totally supportive of me coming home late, but my conscience does not.  So this means I must workout in the morning and I am NOT a morning person--in fact, it is best to give me about an hour before you talk to me if it is early morning.

So this morning my alarm clock went off at 4:35 am and I began to have the typical morning conversation between the "it's okay to stay in bed" and the "get out of bed and workout" angel/devil.  The first voice "you know your tired, just sleep in for a couple of more hours and you can workout when you get home"  Then comes the second voice "get up and workout, you know you need to".  Back comes the first voice with pretty much the same thought of sleeping in and workout later.  The second voice "get up and workout, you know you won't work out when you get home".  First voice the same.  Second voice "get up and workout, you are fat and out of shape and there is no way you will get fast  if you don't work out."  The second voice is a bit more cruel and ends up winning.

I drag my body out of bed and gloomily get ready to ride the spin bike or something like that.  Eventually about 30 minutes into the workout I start to feel pretty good and by the end I am completely awake and ready to take on the day. And although I feel really good by the end of the workout, it still does not change the fact I am not a morning person and I wish there was a different time of day to workout.

So what do I need to do.  I need to find a way to make me a morning person (not likely this will change), or find another solution.  Any suggestions???

Results

I received the results from my holter monitor. The good news is my heart is very healthy. I had a maximum heart rate of 180 during the race--for 40 minutes. My doctor thought this was crazy, but I explained Sundance is up hill--he still thought I was crazy. There were a few other things, but basically my PFO has nothing to do with my low blood pressure, dizziness, fatigue and the need to pass out.

The next step is completely hypothetical, but the doctor wants to try this next. Because I had significant weight loss over the past year (45 pounds) he thinks this may have to do with my veins. He tested my blood pressure laying down, sitting up and then standing up. When I stood up my blood pressure dropped 15 points. This is a symptom of the vein problem. To see if this is the problem he has started me on a medication for 30 days to raise my blood pressure. I have to take my blood pressure daily in the 3 different positions. If the blood pressure levels out, the dizziness subsides, fatigue and passing out then I will see a vascular surgeon and have some veins closed off.

I am a little discouraged because with the PFO we hard a solution. Now we are back to trying to figure out what is the cause. I guess the good news is at least my doctor is trying to figure it out, and right now I need to look at the good news so I won't get too discouraged.

The Diagnosis

As a few of you know I have not been up to par lately. I have been recovering from being sick, fatigue and very low blood pressure. These symptoms actually showed up last year at the Snowbird race, at the time since it was not affecting my every day life so my family doctor was not too concerned, although it was affecting my riding and racing, but it was manageable. Recently though it is affecting my every day life, my riding and most definitely my racing, so off to the doctor I went. As I wrote previously the doctor did a lot of tests, and when I left off we had just finished with me having an MRI.

As predicted my MRI came back normal, except according to the doctor it did show I was a bit of a blonde. My doctor has a great sense of humor. However, the MRI gave a small indicator that I needed an echo-cardiogram. The appointment was set for me to go to cardiology on Monday and have an echo-cardiogram with a bubble test, so on Monday I went.

For those who have never had an echo-cardiogram it is a painless procedure. They put 3 patches on you with electrodes coming out of the patches that attach to a machine. Then they put a gel on an ultra sound wand and place it over the heart area. It is cool to see the heart and what it looks like. I got to the the valves and the left and right side of the heart. After about 45 minutes we then did the bubble part. This is also painless except for putting the IV in you. That usually is not so bad, but the technician missed my vein, and it took everything I had to keep from yelling out as she moved the needle around trying to find the vein. Please just quit when you don't get it, don't keep sticking the needle around trying to see if it is there. Luckily she got someone to come in for the second attempt, and he made it on the first try--I did not want to go through that again.

So back to the bubble part. It takes 2 technicians do the bubble part, one to administer the saline solution and one to continue doing the ultra sound. What they do is shoot a saline mix into the IV, as soon as it goes in you can see it the mixture immediately go to your heart it looks like a whole bunch of little bubbles. Imagine then how quickly drugs get to your heart. I thought it was really cool to see the bubbles go through the 3 different holes in my heart. You could see the valve open and close. It is really cool watching the heart at work. The technician ended up having to shoot the solution in a second time. The second time as he was prepping it he ended up showering me with some of it. I guess I needed a mini shower. After the bubble part we were done. The technician told me it would be about 5 business days before my doctor would get the results. I had an appointment with my doctor the next day, but oh well, maybe he would have something new to tell me.

The next day it was back to the doctor's office for a 2 hour wait and then a visit with the doctor. Well, guess what....the results from by echo-cardiogram were back! The doctor had the report and wondered if the tech told me what she saw. Of course she didn't, but in this case I think the doctor would have been fine with it. He and I read the report, which by the way is not written very well. The results showed I had a Patent Forma Ovale (PFO).

The foramen ovale is a small hole located in the atrial septum that is used during fetal circulation to speed up the travel of blood through the heart. When in the womb a baby does not use it's own lungs for oxygen-rich blood, it relies on the other to provide oxygen rich blood from the placenta through the umbilical cord to the fetus. Therefore, blood can travel from the veins to the right side of the baby's heart and cross to the left side of the heart through the foramen ovale and skip the trip to the baby's lungs.

Normally the foramne ovale closes at birth when increased blood pressure on the left side of the heart forces the opening to close. If the atrila septum does not close properly, it is called a patent forament ovale. This type of defect generally works like a flap valve, only opening during certain conditions when there is more pressure inside the chest. (reference)

Basically what this means is I have a hole in my heart. Which accounts for the 3 holes I saw on the echo-cardiogram. At the time I didn't know what I was looking at, but once I read the report it all made sense. I am so happy to know what I have. I have told friends, family and others very excitedly, because it is a solution. My husband thought it was funny I was so excited over a heart defect, but actually it is nice to know what it is and there is a solution. Now for the solution.

The next step is going to be to wear a halter monitor for 24 hours moitoring what my heart is doing. The doctor wants it on me for a race to ensure a good mixed reading--guess I won't need a heart monitor that week. We decided the Sundance race would be the best. One because it is coming up soon, it is a good uphill climb and higher altitude. Hopefully it will show what goes on before I race, during a race and after.

After the race I don't see the doctor for awhile as it takes at least a week to read the results. Once I see him we'll decide what direction to go. But the good news is although I have a hole in my heart it is very fixable!!!!