This Week at Mobile Tech Manor #41: Stress and Spelling

Mobile Tech Manor Large 2My favorite time of the week is here for the 41st time, when I get to share how my week went down in my home office, Mobile Tech Manor (MTM). I had a nuclear stress test this week and my mobile gear helped me get through that stressful event (sorry, couldn’t help that one). The National Spelling Bee was this week and I couldn’t help feeling so very inferior in the spelling department after watching these young kids. A new gadget will be appearing in MTM shortly and I’ll tease you with a little bit about it. Come on in and I’ll share the entire week with you.

Stress Test with Little Gear

I have regular medical visits and diagnostic tests, given my medical history, and by far my least favorite of all the tests is the nuclear stress test. This is a 4-hour test that involves radioactive dye, two MRIs and, in my case, a chemical stress test. I have been inundated with requests to explain this test so while it is strictly personal I’ll describe the event to put those requests to bed.

My test was scheduled for 8 am and I was instructed to imbibe no caffeine for the 24 hours prior and to have nothing to eat after midnight before. Those of you who know me understand that the no caffeine part was the hard part, and I found myself partaking of herbal tea the day before the test. I don’t really like herbal tea but it sufficed in fooling me into forgetting I was skipping caffeine. I drank so much tea that at one point I felt I was in danger of “going herbal.” It wasn’t really that bad; I’m just kidding.

The morning of the test I got up at my normal early time and hit the shower to get ready to head to the clinic. I had given a lot of thought about the gear I would take with me. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t take at least some gear on an outing but at the end of the process I decided to leave all the gear at home and I just took my iPhone 3G. I figured that if I took other stuff with me I would end up too busy to use it, so with the iPhone in hand, I headed out for the test.

Right after arriving at the clinic the technician started an IV in my hand, which would stay for the course of the test. This was used first for injecting the radioactive dye, Cardiolite, into my system. The dye helps the imaging equipment (MRI) show blood flow to the heart and is used to determine if any areas of the heart are not getting sufficient blood flow. This points out any blocked arteries around the heart, if they exist. The images are taken by a device that looks like an open MRI machine (it may be exactly that) in two phases, first with me at rest and then after a stress test. The two imaging sessions together can thus show blood flow to the heart in normal situations and also under heavy stress such as that induced by heavy exercise.

Once the Cardiolite was injected the nurse had me walk next door to the hospital to eat a “fatty breakfast.” The fatty food would cause any excess dye to move into the digestive system and thus make imaging of the heart clearer. I walked over, ate a quick breakfast sandwich and then returned for the first imaging session.

This session had me laying flat on the tiny MRI table with my left arm on top of my head to make a clear imaging path for the device. The imaging took 15 minutes, after which I was sent out to the waiting room until they were ready for me to do the stress part of the test.

I used the iPhone each time I was waiting out front and it worked well. I read my e-book, checked my RSS feeds in Google Reader and Twittered the time away. It made the day go by much more pleasantly than it would have otherwise.

After too long in the waiting room I was called back for the fun part. In my case, the doctor had decided to chemically induce stress for the second part of the test as I have never been able to finish a conventional stress test on a treadmill. My blood pressure shoots up dangerously right after I start on a treadmill and he has always had to stop the tests early.

I was injected with Lexiscan, which immediately stressed my coronary system to the max. I was hit with acute shortness of breathe and felt like an elephant had plopped down on my chest. My stomach instantly felt very full, too, which was bizarre. The worst of this passed in about five minutes.

The doctor explained that the drug caused my blood vessels to dilate a great deal. This caused my blood to flow quickly, as it would under heavy exercise. The purpose was to image my heart under heavy stress but also to provide contrast between any healthy (and dilated) vessels and blocked vessels that won’t dilate. It makes the blocked parts of the vessels stand out clearly on the images when compared to the healthy parts.

I was hooked up to a BP sleeve the duration of the stress test, as well as an EKG for monitoring. My cardiologist had to be present for the whole test “just in case.” I was happy to hear that my EKG was fine during the high stress, although my BP was a bit higher than we’d like it to be.

When this test was over I was sent back to the waiting room with a cup of ice cream to get more fat in my system. I ate that while following my Twitter friends on the iPhone and read some more of my book.

I was next called in to have an ultrasound scan of my carotid artery. Last year, my carotid was discovered to be 50 percent blocked after my stroke and this scan was to see if it has blocked further or not. Blocked carotid arteries are fairly common, I’ve been told, and 50 percent blockage is not considered serious. The ultrasound took about 15 minutes, after which I was back in the waiting room yet again.

By that time I was wishing I had brought the Viliv S5 with me along with the Verizon MiFi for connectivity. Truth be told, the iPhone served me pretty well during the free time, but the S5 would have let me do more. If I had to do it all over again I would definitely take the S5 with me.

I was eventually called back for the final imaging session and the IV was removed from my hand. I stretched out on the MRI table and after 15 minutes I was good to go. The whole process took almost five hours and I was glad to get out of there. I haven’t heard the results of these tests yet but should in a few days.

Spelling Bee Makes Me Feel So Inferior

I am watching the National Spelling Bee finals on TV, live, as I write this and I am amazed at these young folks and the words they have to spell to move on in the competition. I don’t know of a single word they had to spell that I had even heard of before, yet they spelled them correctly time after time.

As I watched the competition unfold I had to ask myself how these kids study for this level of competition. Do they read the entire Webster Dictionary? Hire tutors that are past champions? How do they prepare? They can’t possible know all of these words.

The deeper into the competition these kids got the more inferior I felt.  I consider myself a decent speller but these words, oh my goodness! I felt worse the longer I watched until I remembered the writer’s credo to always state things as simply as possible. It reads better that way because using big words just for the sake of it turns the readers off. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

To Boingo or not to Boingo

I spent several days this week working out of my office for a change of scenery. I took the MacBook for these sessions and enjoyed myself each time. I also carried the MiFi and used it quite a lot. It performs so well that I’m trying to decide if I want to cancel my Boingo account before the next month renews.

The Boingo service is pretty good. I’ve used it for a long time but I’m wondering if I need to keep paying the $9.95 a month when the Verizon 3G is nearly as good as Wi-Fi. Normally I use Wi-Fi with Boingo but I had one session this week in which Boingo couldn’t detect the hotspot. The Boingo software normally senses when it’s in the range of a qualified hotspot and offers a login box where a single click logs me into the hotspot no matter who runs it. It’s nice and simple, but the rare times when it doesn’t work are quite frustrating.

In this case Boingo didn’t offer me a login opportunity for the hotspot I was in and so I couldn’t connect. I ended up rebooting the MacBook, something I almost never do, at the recommendation of Boingo. The reboot worked and Boingo popped up the login box but then failed at the authorization of my username/password combination. This has never failed before but it did this time even though my information hasn’t changed. I eventually gave up and pushed the button on the MiFi and got right online.

This got me thinking about the whole Boingo thing and I’m pretty sure I will cancel it before the end of the month. The MiFi is more than good enough for my remote work sessions and I save almost ten bucks a month.

Palm Pre Ahead

The launch of the Palm Pre is just a week away and I admit I am getting pretty darn excited about it. I am definitely going to pick one up on launch day — if I can find one, given all the talk about shortages that’s flying around. I have been checking out Sprint stores near me and I must admit I’ve been surprised to find that of the dozens of stores in my immediate area, according to the Sprint store locator only two of them are actually run by Sprint. This makes it unclear where I will be able to find a Pre on launch day so we’ll see how that goes.

Teaser

I didn’t have any new gadgets show up at MTM this week but I there is one coming in the next few days that I’m excited about. I can’t tell you what it is yet but I can say it has no moving parts and doesn’t need Boingo, either. More next week if it shows up when expected.

E-books of the Week

I read a lot this week using both eReader and Kindle on the iPhone. My reading covered a wide spectrum of fiction from good science fiction to detectives to elves.

“Dying Moon” is the first novel by Shawn Oetzel and is a good first effort; I really enjoyed it.  An elf magister crossed over into current Los Angeles and he started doing very bad things using the Shadowed Arts. It was determined that only another elf could catch him so the elf hero Kalen was sent over to work with the U.S. government and police to catch the bad elf. The premise was interesting and gave the author plenty of opportunity to explore how odd an elf would find Los Angeles. Well done and recommended.

I have shared in the past my fondness of the novels of Darrell Bain. This fondness was fueled by the first works of his I read a few years ago, the “Sex Gates” trilogy that he wrote with Jeanine Berry. The sex gates are mysterious portals and those who enter immediately emerge on the other side young and totally healthy. Oh yes, they also change sex during the passage. This trilogy is a great look at human nature and how society would react to a phenomenon like the sex gates and also how changing one’s sex would make one appreciate the other sex.

As I said, I read the trilogy several years ago but recent correspondence with Darrell Bain made me aware that he had originally written the “trilogy” as a single book with a totally different ending. He recently released “The Original Sex Gates” so I had to pick it up. I breezed right through it. It told the whole story of the gates in a single book and I liked this ending better than that of the trilogy. I was so glad to find out about this version (thanks, Darrell) and was happy I read it. I recommend it but be aware it is easily the raunchiest sci-fi novel I have read. That didn’t bother me, in fact it is crucial to the whole sex change theme of the novel but if it bothers you then pass on this one.

I am currently in the middle of John Sandford’s latest book in the Lucas Davenport series, “Wicked Prey”. It is typical Davenport told in the typical Sandford way and I’m liking it a lot.

That’s all Folks

That’s my week, a lot more personal stuff than usual but hopefully those who were curious about the stress test procedure no longer are. I have enjoyed sharing the week with you and until next time, take care of yourself.

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