Don't Go Breaking My Heart

So as a brief medical update:
When I started my seventh run in an endless series of “Couch to 5K” programs, as I get in shape and then fall off the wagon, this time I felt a sharpish pain in the left side of my chest when I got up to “OMG I’M BREATHING VERY HARD” territory.  This wasn’t a usual pain, but it wasn’t enough to bring me to my knees, either.  Still, I’m fastidious about my health when it comes to everything but teeth.
Then I was in the tub, reading in hot water as I do, and when I stood up my heart started pounding like a gorilla trying to get out of the cage. Gini didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary, nor did I turn gray as supposedly heart attack victims to, but I take this shit seriously.
So I went to the doctor, who took an EKG that showed I had potential Q waves.  (If you wanna look at the EKG, here ya go.  Don’t say I never shared anything with you.)  The Q waves mean not that my heart is beating to the rhythm of John Delancie, but rather that there’s an outside shot that I’ve had some sort of heart event in the past.  Might.  Maybe. But my cholesterol levels are high, even as my blood pressure is low.
So I went to the cardiologist today, who did what doctors do when you show up with mild symptoms that sound dangerous, which is to throw EVERY TEST IN THE BOOK at you.  So in the next two weeks I’ll be taking a stress test, an echocardiogram, a sleep test, and wear a fucking harness for two days straight.  All for what will, in most likelihood, be not much at all.  But that’s medicine for you.  Rule it out.
For this, I’ll probably pay in excess of a thousand dollars.  But we don’t need any socialized health care.  That’s crazy talk.  (And yes, having talked to friends abroad who’ve had similar issues, their doctors also recommended such ridiculous workups.  They then waited for seventeen months and died.  Ha ha!  Just kidding, they got workups within a few weeks and went on about their lives. THE HORROR THEY LIVED.)