fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

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fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

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Full Disclosure

After a long night, the frigid morning air slapped me awake as I walked out of the hospital from just attending a delivery. Once home, I decided I had enough energy to do a “high intensity” workout and signed myself up to go in an hour.

I made myself a strong cup of coffee and changed into my gym clothes, pretending I was just starting a new day. Back into the cold with the coffee lingering on my breath, I headed out again.

For some reason, the workout seemed especially hard. I even commented to the woman next to me, “Isn’t this harder than usual?,” as I dragged from one exercise to the next.

On the drive home, I started feeling really bad. I felt nauseous, and I struggled to get a good breath. As I turned into my neighborhood, I was now lightheaded. Scared, I pulled over and called my 19-year-old son, afraid I was going to pass out and nobody would find me until I froze to death.
Once home, I sat down in the mud room and leaned against the wall. My son and our handyman found me there. After You look terrible and We should take you to the ER, I waved them off. “I’m just tired.” They kept badgering me, and finally I agreed to see my internist.
After a shower, food and a nap, I felt much better. As I suspected, my internist didn’t find anything wrong, but she insisted I couldn’t work out again until I had a stress echo the following week.
A week without working out… Seriously, that was not going to happen, but I just kept that between me and me.
Before the stress test, I was not to have any caffeine. No coffee! So I slugged through my morning workout class, changed and went to the stress test.
The tech did his damdest to “stress” me, but it was taking forever, leaving us lots of time to chat and for me to complain about not having my morning Joe. Eventually, I fessed up

“Ok, full disclosure, I worked out this morning,” feeling a little sheepish.

He smiled and replied, “Full disclousre: You could have had coffee this morning.”

Andrea Eisenberg
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

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