LAST WEEK!

Hello Hello Hello!!!!

I’m back to normal, as far as normal for me goes!

No more book study . . . which I DID enjoy, especially the FB Live portion with my friend, Christina, and while it truly was a refresher for me, I’ve got to be honest.

Blogging each week about a chapter in a book felt a little bit like homework. 😳😜

And I’d much rather just get on here and tell you what’s going on in my life, what I’m eating, maybe a helpful tip or two, a teaching idea, and hopefully . . . a FUNNY story!

SO YAY! Let’s get down to business! 🥳

If you follow me on Instagram, then you’ve already heard this story because I actually got on Instagram Stories to tell it because I was TRAUMATIZED.

I said TRAUMATIZED.

As many of you know, I have a heart condition called Dilated Cardiomyopathy. I was diagnosed over nine years ago, and while it took a few years to figure things out, I am now ALL GOOD, and feel mostly like a normal person most of the time.

😉

I am on a “cocktail” of medicines, I only see my cardiologist twice a year now, and I have to have yearly Echocardiograms. An echocardiogram is not an EKG, although I’ve had millions of those, too, and I get one every time I see my cardiologist.

An echocardiogram is an ultrasound of the heart.

And for all of these last nine years, I have never ever EVER had a guy tech.

EVER.

But last week, I had a guy tech.

Male.

And not just any male tech. I had a big, bearded, handsome male tech.

And, just so you’re aware . . . when you get an ultrasound of the heart, you have to take everything off, including your bra.

Which is what this guy said to me.

In this little room of the doctor’s office with no windows.

Please take everything off from the waist up, including your bra.

By the way, when the female tech says that, the female tech that I’ve had almost every single time over the last nine years, I’ve thought nothing of it.

But this was just a little too bossy and inappropriate, if you ask me.

Take yours off, mister!

So he left the room to give me privacy which is just absolutely ironic considering what came next.

So I did what every woman does when they’re in this type of a position (like when you’re at the gynecologist’s office and you’re taking everything off except your socks), I folded up my shirt all nice and neat and put it on the chair, and then I put my bra UNDER it.

Now, don’t be frightened . . . it wasn’t like I just stood there in the little room with no windows naked as a jay bird with just my shorts on, waiting for this male tech to come back in . . . oh no.

Why, I got to put a little paper shirt on.

!!!

You know the kind.

OPEN IN THE FRONT.

So then this guy comes back in, and asks me to lie down on the bed.

I mean.

Well, if you don’t know this about me by now, I am here to tell you I am a people pleaser EVEN WHEN I DON’T WANT TO BE.

Even when I’m thinking NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.

So I got on the bed, and I did what he said.

And then we made a little bit of chit chat about what was about to happen, and I was nervous-talking which means I was pretty much just vomiting up everything little thing about myself, including that I had been diagnosed over nine years ago and I knew everything that was about to happen, and he couldn’t believe my diagnosis and said something like . . .

But you’re so young!

or

You look so young!

or

But you’re so pretty!

That last one did not happen, but I was all up in my head so let’s just go with it.

Meanwhile, he was getting gel out and rubbing it on a wand . . .

And then he said OKAY, PLEASE LIE STILL AND DON’T TALK.

👀

Um, okay.

That’s not awkward or anything.

And then he proceeded to rub that wand all over my chest area.

And in order for you to REALLY UNDERSTAND THIS, I need to tell you that he had to OPEN UP MY PAPER SHIRT and LOOK TO SEE WHERE HE WANTED THE WAND TO GO.

And you know I’m teeny tiny. AS IN, there is not a lot to look at IN ANY CASE WHATSOEVER AT ALL, which means he could have put that wand ANYWHERE UNDER THE PAPER SHIRT and he would have been somewhere within the vicinity of where he needed to be.

I mean COME ON NOW.

So then, I was silent and topless for a good solid 25 minutes and only moved twice when he asked me to PLEASE TURN ONTO YOUR LEFT.

Because that is SUCH A GOOD LOOK.

And the whole time I’m wondering WHAT THE HECK IS HE THINKING? DOES HE FEEL SORRY FOR ME BECAUSE I DO NOT REALLY HAVE ANY BOOBS TO SPEAK OF? DOES HE LIKE THIS JOB? WILL HE GO HOME AND TELL HIS SIGNIFICANT OTHER THAT THIS SMALL WOMAN CAME IN TODAY AND SHE HAD NO BOOBS WHATSOEVER TO SPEAK OF?

When it was all said and done, he told me I could get dressed.

Which means I survived.

But I left there thinking I’VE BEEN TOPLESS FOR THE LAST HALF HOUR WITH SOME GUY RUBBING GEL ALL OVER ME.

Where’s my dollar bill? Two dollars?

Anyone?!

And let’s be clear. I get it. I understand. Most of you have had babies and you’ve been in WAY WORSE situations, and you’re fine, and you think nothing of it.

I really don’t think anything of it, either, when I am getting a mammogram or I’m at the gynecologist . . . because that’s what is SUPPOSED to happen.

Come to think of it, I have NEVER had a guy tech for a mammogram, either. But I have had a male gynecologist and, again, all of that is supposed to happen.

My only point is that this is for my HEART.

It’s like the time I had to have an angiogram to check for any blockages in my heart. So I was in the hospital, wearing a hospital gown and NOTHING ELSE, and the next thing I know, my CARDIOLOGIST is checking for blockages in my heart by using a catheter which he inserted into the MAIN ARTERY in my GROIN.

MY GROIN. Even though he is a CARDIOLOGIST.

Do you see what I’m saying?!

And he told me he put a tissue over my private area . . . even though I could feel said tissue blowing and flapping in the air conditioning breeze of the surgery room.

Even though there was a window with four or five other cardiologists and doctors peeking in.

WHAT IN THE WORLD?!

So that’s all I’m saying.

Shoulder shrug.

I survived.

I lived to tell the story.

☺️