Mr. Heart's Photo Shoot

Today was the first day of Mr. Heart’s two day photo shoot.

Now, I know you must be thinking “Mr. Heart’s two day photo shoot?  What the heck are you talking about?”  Don’t worry, I’ve processed the negatives from the shoot, and I’ve developed a nice collage of details to help you understand the imagery a little better.

As Mr. Heart’s manager, caretaker, chauffeur, etc…, it was my job to make sure he arrived at the studio on time; the shoot was scheduled to begin promptly at 9:00 a.m.  We got to the studio, which was designed to look like a cardiologist’s office, at 8:45 a.m., in order to give us plenty of time to get into the office, let the managers know we were there, and wait for a studio assistant to show us to the dressing room.

For some reason, it took more than 20 minutes for an assistant to greet Mr. Heart’s entourage, and escort us back to the dressing room, but Heart remained unusually calm, and didn’t get upset because of the wait.  I was quite impressed with the way he handled the situation, and made a point to tell him so.

Upon entering the dressing room, we all noticed that it was designed to look like a Stress Test Lab, complete with a treadmill, EKG machines, heart monitors, you name it.  Apparently, this was the only room available, so it would have to do.  Again, Mr. Heart was surprisingly calm about the whole situation.  It was as if he had been in this situation before, and had just learned to deal with it.

Once we were settled, the lab tech, er, I mean studio assistant came in to go over the details of the photo shoot, and help me, I mean Mr. Heart get dressed for the shoot.

As it turns out, Mr. Heart had signed a deal to model medical supplies and equipment for this shoot, including IVs, electrode patches and cables, blood pressure cuffs, and more.  He had even agreed to taking a shot of Lexiscan to get him pumped up, and looking and acting like a badass for the photo shoot.  And that was to be followed by a radioactive tracer that could be seen by the special cameras that the photographer was going to use.

Suddenly my mind was yelling, “Wait a minute; hold everything; this can’t be right!”  There was no way Mr. Heart was going to be modeling the medical equipment and supplies.  It just wasn’t physically possible.  And a quick look at information sheet that the “studio” provided explained it all.

You see, that “studio” really was a cardiologists office, and that “dressing room” really was a stress test lab.  And the name at the top of the information sheet wasn’t “Mr. Heart’s”.  It was mine.  I was there for the first part of a Stress Test.

Overall, the first part of the test went well, although there were a few snags.  My cardiologist wasn’t in the office when I got there, so I had to wait for him to get there to start the test.  The lab tech had setup an IV in my left arm, and had me wired up with the EKG and heart monitors, so when the doctor got there, we could start the test right away.  Unfortunately, that didn’t go as planned because by the time the doctor got there, the IV had somehow popped out of the vein.  So, the tech had to start a new IV in my right arm, and instead of waiting, the doctor went to see another patient.  So, the process was delayed a little longer.

Things finally came together and the test was started.  They put the Lexiscan into the IV, and followed that with the radioactive tracer.  The doctor watched the EKG and heart monitors, and also checked my blood pressure a few times.  When the test was over, I was unhooked, given some food, and shown to a waiting room to wait an hour for the tracer to make its way through my system.  When the hour was up, I was taken to a lab where I was placed in the camera machine.  15 minutes later, I was out of the machine, and within another 15 minutes I was out of the “studio” and on my way to better places.

So there you have it.  The first part of the test is over, and I’m not too bad off.  I am a bit upset with Mr. Heart though.

I’m the one who bore the discomfort and pain, but he’s the one who got the credit and had his picture taken.