Exercise — The DIY Stress Test

Photo credit: Jacki Donaldson

I have pretty low blood pressure, and a really low pulse, and I’ve always been sorta proud of that. I mean, my resting heart rate is like Lance Armstrong low, and while I’m no ultra-athlete, and it’s probably a total fluke that I’m usually in the 40s, I like to think it means something important — like I’m in good shape. (For an adult, a normal resting heart rate ranges from 60 to 100 beats a minute.)

Nurses who take my vitals at medical appointments typically do a double take when they look at my numbers, then ask me if it’s standard that I’m so low. “Yep,” I tell them. They follow with, “Do you run?” Again, “Yep,” I respond, and they tell me, “Well, then, it’s normal.” Just a strong heart.

And that’s what makes me proud — my strong heart — because I do run quite a bit, and I like to know that what I’m doing is making a difference. My heart is healthy. Yay!

But recently, I started worrying about my ticker, because, you see, I’ve had three breast cancer treatments that are potentially heart-toxic. There were the four doses of chemo drug Adriamycin, then six weeks of five-days-a-week radiation right over my heart, plus a year of every-three-week infusions of a drug called Herceptin. Next year (eight years out from diagnosis), I will have some heart monitoring to see if everything is OK. I’m a worrier, though, and until some test tells me I’m in the clear, I’m gonna fret a little bit. So, when I read an article about how low heart rates can signal a problem, I freaked a little, and I asked my doctor about it.

“I’m not worried at all,” she said. In fact, since I’m a runner, she said I’m repeatedly putting myself through stress tests. Should anything go wrong with my heart, I’ll be the first to know it, because something will surface as I’m pounding the pavement — I might have trouble breathing, or I’ll feel chest pains, or maybe my endurance will suffer. Basically, I’m monitoring myself every time I lace up my sneakers and hit the road, and you know what? That motivates me even more to keep at it. I don’t want to miss a day, because I want to keep my heart strong, and I want to give it the chance to send me a sign if something is amiss.

Here’s my point: cancer survivor or not, you should do stress tests, too. What a simple and inexpensive way to keep tabs on your heart health (and your waistline)!