When Your Heart Throws a Tantrum: Surviving Stress Tests, Chest Pain, and Chronic Illness Comedy

My heart has been acting up again, the way a toddler acts up when you tell them bedtime is non-negotiable. One minute it’s beating politely like the respectable organ it’s supposed to be, and the next it’s speeding along like it’s late for a flight it never booked. Sprinkle in a few chest pains—the soft “tap on the shoulder” kind, not the dramatic “grab-the-pearls” kind—and you’ve got the latest episode of My Cardiologist’s Gonna Love This.

Naturally, my doctor suspected water retention, because when in doubt, blame the fluids. He doubled my Lasix for a week, which sounded fine until I realized this meant peeing with the frequency of an excited puppy. And of course, this all lined up perfectly with a three-hour work trip, because chronic illness has a calendar of its own and it enjoys comedy. Try maintaining any dignity when your bladder is scheduling its own emergency broadcasts every twenty minutes on the interstate. My car seat and I have never been closer.

And the worst part? After all that joyful hydration evacuation, the chest pains didn’t back down. The heart rate stayed spicy. The body shrugged and said, “Cute try.”

So now I get to revisit my least favorite test in the world: the exercise stress test. You would think someone who has literally been awake during heart surgery—yes, conscious, yes, talking—wouldn’t be rattled by something so ordinary. But no. The human brain is chaos. I was cool as a cucumber during the stuff involving scalpels and patched-up chambers, probably thanks to the Valium that had me floating like a discount balloon. But a stress test? That gets me every time.

There is nothing dignified about walking bare-backed on a treadmill in a room cold enough to store seafood, with wires dangling off you like some low-budget sci-fi creature. The techs always say, “Just walk until you feel your heart rate rise.” Sir, my heart rate rises when Amazon rings the doorbell. It rises when the dog sneezes suspiciously. It rises when my wife says, “We need to talk.” Trust me, the bar is low.

But no, they want you really going. Faster. Steeper. Sweatier. And then, right when you reach that magical “I might black out or start tap dancing involuntarily” moment, they tell you to stop abruptly, flop down on a table like a stunned seal, endure the coldest gel known to mankind, and receive what can only be described as an ultrasound probe wielded with the enthusiasm of a woodpecker. Why my ribs have to be involved, I don’t know. I don’t question the rituals of cardiology anymore.

By the end, I’m drained—physically, emotionally, spiritually, cellularly. Stress tests are my personal Olympics, and I never win a medal. But the thing is, despite the ridiculous choreography and my deep desire to evaporate into mist, the test usually gives me one thing I desperately need: reassurance. It tells me the heart is still functioning, still beating in its clumsy but determined way, still trying its best even when I swear it hates me. It tells me that life, with all its left turns and loud surprises, can keep going.

So here I am, once again, waiting for results, hoping for the kind that let me breathe easier—not just because breathing is kind of my hobby at this point. Chronic illness is a lot of guesswork wrapped in hope wrapped in stubbornness. But even on the days when my heart misbehaves like it’s trying to get written up, I remind myself that I’ve made it through far worse, far stranger, and far more dramatic.

Here’s to positive results, cooperative organs, and the small victories we earn simply by showing up for the hard stuff—even when the hard stuff involves treadmills, ice-cold rooms, and a tech named Carl who insists the gel “isn’t that cold.” It is, Carl. It is.

And if you’ve survived your own medical circus lately, pull up a chair. I’m always ready to hear a good story—or at least commiserate about the gel.

If this made you laugh, cringe, or feel seen, drop a comment below or subscribe so we can keep navigating this chronic illness chaos together.