another cardiophile blog

I heard there's a lot of nasty illnesses going around, and I'm going to the tropics soon and do NOT want to be sick for vacation. So I vaxmaxxed on my lunch break today to help protect against whatever's making its rounds in the office.

I was always fascinated by just how noticeable my lymph nodes are when they swell in response to multiple vaccines. A biological system within me that I so rarely think about starkly presents itself through slightly sore and swollen little lumps in my neck, armpit, and chest. There's a weird little universe inside me that is reacting to what it thinks is the latest new disaster, sounding the alarms to eradicate these new intruders; meanwhile in the outside world, there's a little uncomfortable lump in my armpit 😂

I finally got this Spacelabs 90309 to work! Powered by an Intel 80186 processor, it's basically a late 80s/early 90s PC running on hardware of the time. The software is dated 1997-06-11, making this thing almost as old as me! 👴

I got it for $1 knowing nothing about it and was surprised it even powered on, but the touchscreen was so old it had basically disintegrated. It was so warped, it looked like the unit had been sitting in a hot storage room for over a decade. It definitely had that distinct smell of old decaying resin, and I was happy to rip out the panel and throw it away. To my surprise, it's actually an infrared touchscreen, so after removing the damaged panel I could actually still use the touch functionality just by hovering over buttons on the exposed electroluminescent display. It's super cool retro medical tech!!

I can't find any documentation for this thing online, but it has a similar interface to other Spacelabs monitors from the time. I was able to find the service password and configure it to my liking. It's a bit clunky but that's not surprising given its age. The NIBP still works and is actually decently accurate as determined by concurrent auscultatory measurement. It can also display an SpO2 waveform, but I would need to get an ancient probe for it. It's on my radar!

At the most recent medical surplus auction, I decided to finally roll the dice on an old ultrasound. It was in pretty rough shape and listed as not working. Even if I couldn't fix it, I figured it would be worth taking apart just to see how it worked; I ended up getting it for the opening bid since nobody else wanted it. I got a few probes too, and in total I paid about $90 for the unit plus 4 probes. It turned out that this machine appears to be an early prototype model with almost no online presence. However, I found the manual for the newer model which has basically the same interface. Unfortunately, this particular model does not work with all probes, nor does it have external video output. That being said, it does actually work! It took some reverse engineering and a custom power supply to get an image, but it's far more than I expected from a broken unit!

I am IN LOVE with this clunky old thing. I can see my beautiful little heart pumping away, its valves opening and closing and ventricles squeezing and swelling. And the Doppler mode called "Pulse Wave" actually lets me hear what it sounds like inside my heart. Moving the cursor, I can target an exact location and hear my heart expanding and contracting and blood rushing in and out. With careful precision, I can even see and hear my little heart valves fluttering in perfect rhythm, like the wings of a butterfly 🦋💖

Happy 4th! 🦅🍻 Cue the fireworks — 🎆🎇 it's a new post!! I realized that I got this doppler at one of the first medical surplus auctions I participated in, and I've never shown it off! It was easy enough to fix up, and despite its quirks it works quite well. It's a vascular doppler so it's a bit different from fetal dopplers. The vascular ones operate at a higher frequency which results in a shallower penetration depth. As such, the sound is a bit different compared to the fetal doppler. I really should compare the two someday.

In this vid I show off several spots over my heart and at my left carotid and right femoral arteries! Dopplers offer a unique listening experience to hear the heart; with a stethoscope you generally are hearing the sounds of the heart's valves snapping shut. However, dopplers use high frequency sound to make motion audible, so you hear the whooshing of blood flowing in the heart in addition to the motion of the muscle itself. If you get at just the right angle, you can even hear the delicate fluttering of heart valves opening and closing.

Dopplers are also a little different from a stethoscope in that they are highly directional. The angle of the probe determines the direction in which the sound is captured. In other words, slightly tilting the probe results in a completely different sound. One of the quirks of this particular model is that when the audio peaks, instead of clipping the audio it completely cuts out. It's a bit weird to get used to but as with all things, it gets easier with practice!!

I like to play with my heart and push the limits sometimes, but I also like to just take it easy and relax too. It's an important part of keeping my heart happy and healthy 😊

So for tonight, I wanted to share a pic of me just relaxing and checking my heart. My blood pressure is perfect and my heart is nice and slow. Don't trust that diastolic number, this Dinamap is always wayyy lower than what I get with my stethoscope!! 😂

One of the unfortunate realities of making content in this space is that the majority of interaction from fans is demanding, unwarranted, inappropriate, and selfish. To those of you who simply watch, like, and move on, I do appreciate that you enjoy my content and generally just lurk. Ultimately, I make this content because I like to do it and share it with others.

Now it's obvious that women on this platform get orders of magnitude more interaction, and considering the large volume of unwanted attention I get, I can only imagine how tiresome it can get for them. I've watched the progression of many creators as their blogs soar in popularity and they get so much unwanted attention that they disappear from the face of the Internet. Now I know that the kind of people that push creators over the edge to nuke everything are neither intelligent nor self-aware enough to realize that they are the problem. So ultimately I guess my plea is to the creators out there: please just create content for yourself. Only do what you want to do. Fans are great for suggestions and ideas, but there's a fine line between requests and demands, and there will always be people who hide behind the mask of anonymity to be selfish, brainless monsters. It truly just comes with the territory. People will always push your boundaries, and the best you can do is block and move on.

Now I just need to find a case for the 12-lead! 🤔

Completed a chemically-induced stress test this weekend. 🤫😉☺️

EKG normal, vitals finally stabilized. Patient discharged with no chief complaints. Will plan to test again in a week to observe any changes...