Hi everyone... just a quick check in today.  Been pretty busy. Tomorrow is my little Jacob&#39;s 2nd b-day . where does the time go. Can not wait to see him and his glee when he blows out the candles and opens gifts.  He is starting to talk but often has conversations in his &quot;own talk&quot; that surely means something to him but we still can not totally interpret. It is s cute when  I talk to him on the phone. He is so excited to hear my voice. Can you tell  that i am a proud Nana.<br /><br />Mary Lou, I wanted to tell you not to worry about your cardiac stress test. I am a nuclear medicine technologist and in our lab we do about 12-15 patients a day. Most people are scared when they come in and then afterwards tell us it was not bad at all. There are several different types of nuclear stress testing and it sounds like your doc has ordered  nuclear stress test that utilizes a medicine to &quot;stress the heart&quot;.  This is all done in a very controlled manner and is no danger to you.  There are about 3 different kinds of medicines that are used for this kind of testing. Dobutomine, Adenosine or persantine.  Each one is administered a little differently and works in a slightly different way to stress.  If you have questions about a specific type that your doctor has mentioned to you , PM me and I will be glad to give you more info.  The nuclear part of the testing is simply two sets of images. One set looks at the blood flow to your heart muscle in a resting state and is usually performed prior to stress testing. A radiopharmaceutical is administered and after a short wait time, the images are acquired. You will be asked to lie on your back with your arms raised over your head- then the camera rotates around your chest area. At peak stress the 2nd radiopharmaceutical injection takes place. This material fixes in your heart at peak stress which allows the imaging to look at what the blood flow to your heart muscle looks like when under stress. A comparison is made between the two sets of images to determine if there are any areas of the heart that are not getting enough blood flow.  The radiopharmaceuticals will not make you feel any differently. The radiation exposure to you is often not any more than some xray or CT scans. It is just a different way of imaging.  Nuclear medicine imaging looks at the physiological functioning of different organs whereas other imaging modalities look at anatomy. Each kind of testing has its purpose. Don&#39;t be scared... this is a very good test and it is one of the least invasive ways to to evaluate what is going on.  take care... I hope my explanation helped and did not make you more anxious. <br /><br />Joey, glad your check up was a good one. <br />Tonia, good luck going back to work<br />Jackie, how are you surviving work? <br />To everyone else- have a great weekend&#33;<br /><br />Gail<br /><br />ok guys... got to run but did want to spend a little time checking in.