I went to the hospital today for an Exercise Stress Test to see what my heart does when exercising. I had to go on a treadmill while hooked up to an ECG, every 3 minutes the tradmill would get faster and the incline increase.

The aim was to get to 90% of my Maximum heart rate or about 190bpm. They got me to exercise until I reached 200bpm, then stopped the treadmill and asked me to lay on the bed. While they were checking my blood pressure and sorting print outs my heart bpm jumped to 230 maybe more, I couldn’t see the monitor very well. After 30 seconds it returned to normal.

This is fairly typical of what happens although it didn’t last long today, sometimes it can do this and last several minutes or in the case when I was in Canada several hours.

I am pleased it went wrong while there and is shown on the ECG, hopefully I should now be asked to go to discuss the results.

Anyway the reason for the title is about a year ago, I went to see an electrical heart specialist, no idea of proper name. The actual doctor I was supposed to see was off sick, so saw his registrar. He explained and drew me a picture of what they thought was happening to my heart. I can’t remember him actually saying “Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome” but that’s what he explained was happening. Although if this is correct I’m not sure, all the stuff in the UK was based on what was said in Canada. The doctor their wanted to conduct further tests, like the one today. Its kind of worrying that they hadn’t bothered to do any more tests until the doctor I saw a few weeks ago just happened to continue reading through my documentation and realised. He had said that I didn’t need to go back, but then I got a call a couple of hours later from his secretary saying I needed further tests.

Anyway here’s some links to Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome (oh yeah Marilyn Manson & Meatloaf have it):

• BBC Good simple explanation
• Wikipedia Article
• American Heart Association Article
• Bundle of Kent Article

Here’s my new bike, a Specialized FSR XC Expert. I got it cheaper than listed on most sites, thank god.

It was bought from Bike Scene in Guisborough, I went for a short 6.5 mile ride once I got home. The route was a mixture of bridle ways with some very rough track down a fast hill. This gave the suspension a workout, must of been travelling twice as fast as I had previously ridden down the track on a non suspension bike. Easily could of gone faster but the brakes aren’t bedded in yet, so had to take it slightly easier.

Can’t wait to get out again.