"Taking It to Heart"

By Jerry Zezima

It does my heart good to know that my heart is in the right place (right now it’s in my office, where I am, too) and that I don’t need open-heart surgery.

That’s why I was happy to have a heart-to-heart talk with a very nice ultrasound technician named Emily, who gave me an echocardiogram. It showed, among other things, that I am able to fire off dumb remarks in a heartbeat.

I had the test to see if my aortic aneurysm, which was discovered a year and a half ago, had grown to the size of a colorful balloon with cartoon hearts and the words “Get well soon!”

A cardiac surgeon said I needed an operation, but he called me the day before the scheduled surgery to say a scan showed the aneurysm wasn’t of sufficient size for such an invasive procedure after all. The news made my heart flutter.

“We can treat it with medication,” he said.

That includes, I like to think, red wine, which I consider over-the-counter heart medicine.

Still, I have to go for follow-up exams. The most recent one was the echocardiogram.

Accompanying me for moral support was my wife, Sue, a cardiac patient herself who has summoned the strength not only to keep me alive, but to rotate her eyeballs, multiple times a day, at my dumb remarks.

“Do you have to give me more than one cardiogram?” I asked Emily.

“No,” she replied. “Why?”

“Because,” I said, “it’s an echo.”

Both Emily and Sue rotated their eyeballs.

After I gave Emily the shirt off my back, she asked me to lie down on a padded sonography table.

“I am going to put stickers on your chest,” she said.

“Are they smiley stickers?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Those are extra.”

The stickers were connected to wires that made me feel like a car battery in need of a jump. They would allow Emily to monitor my heart rate and rhythm.

Then she instructed me to lie on my left side with my back toward her.

“Put your right arm on your right thigh,” Emily said. “And put your left arm under your head.”

“It sounds like I’m doing the Hokey Pokey,” I said.

“Without the music,” she added.

“Maybe I’ll fall asleep,” I said.

“Don’t snore,” said Sue, who is used to my overnight rumblings.

Emily used a wand (not magic because I didn’t disappear) to go over my chest, side, throat and stomach.

The result:

1) I had a heartbeat.

2) I wasn’t pregnant.

During the procedure, in which Emily used an acoustic gel that was spread with the wand, I heard a loud squishy sound.

“Was that me?” I asked.

“Yes,” she reported.

“Sorry,” I said. “When you get to be this age, these things happen.”

Emily and Sue rotated their eyeballs again.

When Emily ran the wand over my throat, she said, “Keep your chin up.”

“I always do,” I said. “Then I walk into a wall.”

More ocular twirling.

When she was finished, Emily took my blood pressure and pronounced it “perfect.” Then she said I could put my shirt back on.

“How is my aneurysm?” I asked.

“You’ll have to ask the cardiologist,” she said.

So I did.

“It’s about the same,” said Dr. Rohit Maini. “You have good numbers, so you still don’t need surgery.”

He walked me and Sue to the front desk.

“Are you checking out?” the receptionist asked me.

“Not for a long time,” I answered.

“Six months,” Dr. Maini said.

“You’re giving me six months?” I spluttered. “I want a second opinion.”

“No,” he said with a smile. “I’ll see you again in six months.”

“Thanks, doc,” I said. “It does my heart, but not Sue’s eyeballs, a world of good.”

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima