I’m one of many to put off yearly doctor appointments. I worry that I’ll enter, in my gynecologist’s case, an exam room so sterile I feel bad for even introducing my molecules to the space, and in my physician’s case, a carpeted waiting area that appears to take on the form of soggy oatmeal, and be told that yes, everything you feared is true: You are dying. Sorry.
So these appointments tend to get pushed, which when you’re a person with a cervix that has an entire vaccine dedicated to it to ward off cancer, is actually an incredibly dumb thing to do. But sometimes we’ll get lucky and I’ll wake up one morning, head freshly screwed on correctly, and declare to no one in particular that it would really be responsible to get the old vessel that is my body checked out. You know, specifically the boobs. And maybe a glance at that clever little IUD to ensure the uterus hasn’t completely sucked it up into its depths, ensnaring the deceivingly small and harmless device into its walls (so much to worry about lately it seems…I wish we could all just default to the fear of dying alone like back in the olden days).
And so, in my usual rushed manner, I will call these offices to find an appointment for as early as the next day before I lose the will to go. I live for these moments; they’re great. I will enter these establishments with their impressionist painting prints randomly strewn about the walls with hardly any anxiety (I suppose these works do have a calming presence after all…I admire the tactics of the interior designers). I can’t wait for my doctor to tell me that everything seems to be in working order, at least from a baseline biological standpoint. I love having that information on hand.
Shortly after one said productive day of scheduling in 2018, I went to see a primary care physician who took it upon herself to overturn every stone that my body had to offer. I think the widespread search was prompted by my telling her that I’d fainted in the shower recently. I’m pretty sure it was dehydration but I appreciated the thoroughness nonetheless. I ended up having my thyroid checked out via ultrasound at one of those Lenox Hill-area testing centers after she ran her fingers down my throat and mumbled under her breath, “Hmm, feels a little nodular.” (Not to worry, turns out my thyroid is just bumpy. If you find that hot please feel free to reach out). She then performed an EKG (that records the electrical activity of your heart) which spat out a visual representation of my anxiety into an unsurprisingly long, sad, graph. She stared at it and seemed unsatisfied to say the least, directing my attention to its peaks and valleys as if I had any idea what anomalies I was remotely looking at. I remember feeling a bit of pity for my heart. I mean, really it was only doing its best.
I came back a week later to receive an echocardiogram (I think) as a double-check (on what, I have no idea). The process, which I learned is essentially yet another ultrasound, was much longer than I expected and glaringly not covered by my insurance. I lay naked from the waist up, pinned to the exam table by a hand-held wand that spread that notorious gel all the way up to my collarbone. I marveled at the progress of modern medicine. Crazy that with just a little lube on the boobs you can find out if you’re dying in a matter of minutes these days. It’s odd to hear all the disturbing noises your heart makes as it begrudgingly goes about its routine to keep you alive. Not odd enough to be that jarring though apparently, because I fell asleep for a few minutes about halfway through the procedure.
My doctor called me a week later to give me the results. “You have a bit of a leaky tricuspid valve,” she said. “That’s the thing that separates the two right chambers of your heart. But not to worry, you can continue on with your normal physical activity. This shouldn’t be an issue at any point but we’ll keep an eye on it.” How disappointing, I thought. Not only do I have a leaky tricuspid valve, which seemed like some kind of flaw at least, but I also don’t have a new weapon to strengthen my avoidance of having to sign up for a goddamn marathon in my mid-twenties? What kind of sick joke is this!
But fair enough. So I have a leaky tricuspid valve. To this day I’m not really sure what that means, but a quick google search to refresh my seventh-grade bio curriculum told me that the thing is responsible for allowing blood flow in and out of these right chambers appropriately. That sounded relatively important to me. I didn’t really understand the implications of its leakiness, but at the time it seemed that if it was significant enough for my doctor to mention, then it was significant enough for me to think about occasionally or inject into some dying conversation with a brunette man who doesn’t know how to ask you questions at a party. And so, I brought it up to my new doctor this year as a bit of an FYI.
I find my new doctor (I switched health insurance) to be hilarious. He’s refreshingly unapologetically cranky. I love people like that. I refuse to correct him when he calls me Elizabeth because I get a real kick out of him saying both my legal and the Queen of England’s name in his snarky tone. I asked him to let me know what my blood type is (B+) and then mentioned my abnormal ticker. “Oh, well nearly everyone’s valves are a little leaky,” he said. “But we can take a look.”
So there I was again, assuming the corpse pose, gel slathered on my topless form, listening to that damn organ grumble along. The results were groundbreaking. “Well, it’s a little leaky,” my doctor said, “but like I said, everyone’s heart is a little leaky. Do I think it’s too leaky? No, I don’t think so. I’m not really seeing anything out of the ordinary here.” I looked at him with a raised brow across his massive desk which was adorned with national sports paraphernalia and stifled a laugh. He laughed back. “You’re funny, Elizabeth. But you’ve got to draw the line somewhere,” he said. “It’s a bit subjective when it comes to these things.”
So there you have it, folks. It’s me, Alden, I mean Elizabeth, the girl with the tricuspid valve that isn’t quite leaky enough to raise a red flag. And I’m thankful for it! I guess I just don’t understand just how leaky one needs to be to start worrying about their checkups every year, and unfortunately this whole thing prevented me from getting the completely squeaky clean bill of health I so desired. I abhor anticipating going to the doctor, so when I do decide to go on these fateful days, I want to be in and out with verbal and written proof that I’m good to go. Not, good to go, but with one leaky tricuspid valve. I don’t want that aberration. I’m talking so good to go that my file doesn’t have a single additional note. But I’m not sure I’ll ever get that if my heart is doing a subjectively mediocre job at pumping my blood, leaving me to judge if it needs to be brought up in any future medical setting that could lead to another sticky exploratory procedure. Regardless, I’m coming to terms with the seemingly lazy thing. And I think it’s ok, because dammnit, your valves are probably leaky, too.