Hooked Up

mine has no harness--just a belt hook

When I was younger, "hook up" had no carnal meaning. We hooked up a new stereo. Or met someone for coffee and donuts. Or arranged to meet someone we'd not seen in a long time.

This kind of thing happens, though: Old harmless phrases become new naughty ones. Let's credit (blame?) the ever-fecund libido. Or--to mix a metaphor--the Old Faithful of Naughty.

Anyway, yesterday I hooked up.

The old way.

As I wrote a few days ago, I was supposed to get my Holter (heart) monitor at the Twinsburg University Hospitals facility on Friday, but the lone unit they had malfunctioned, so the company sent me a new one via some express package service, and it arrived on Saturday.

Too chicken to hook up myself, I messaged my physician via the UH portal and arranged to hook up with a nurse yesterday at 2:00. Joyce went along. (I imagine you filthy-minded folk are really enjoying yourselves about now.)

So ... hooking up with the nurse: She readily hooked me up: four sticky patches, four color-coded cables, a little recording device about the size of one of those cool little transistor radios from my youth. Hooked on my belt. And off I went into Life, hooked up.

Among the dire (Dyer?) warnings in all the accompanying paperwork that came with the device is one that says I must not get the device wet. But I can remove it to shower, then hook up again afterward with a fresh set of sticky-patches-with-connections.

This morning, Joyce (who normally has headed out to the health club before I have finished showering) stayed behind to hook up with me. Precise as ever, she made some little positional marks on my chest with a permanent marker; then we removed the patches (tiny Ouch! four times); I showered (the marks remained ... will they forever?); then we replaced the patches and hooked up again.

This procedure--morning hook-ups--will continue until next Monday, when, in the afternoon, I will peel-and-remove for the last time. Then I'll put the hook-up device in a (provided) return mail envelope and wait to hear from my physician about how my heart performed.

But after all that hooking up, can there be any doubt what kind of shape my heart is in?

***

PS--Later this morning, I will hook up with an ophthalmologist to see if he can figure out why my vision is sometimes blurry and dizzying during all of this hooking up (and the events of the past few weeks & months).

Stay tuned for more about my Adventures in MedWorld! (Will there be more hooking-up to come?)