Every so often, my doctor sends me in for a nuclear stress test. Basically, what happens is that they inject you with a nuclear dye and then let you sit for 45 minutes so that the dye can be absorbed by your body.

After 45 minutes, they do a 15 minute scan of your heart using some sort of electronic imaging device. When the scan is done, they send you to the tread mill to see how well your heart performs under stress.

Just before you finish the tread mill, they inject you with some more nuclear dye. After the tread mill, they have you sit and wait for another 45 minutes before they do their final heart scan.

Now, the key word through all of this is NUCLEAR.

When the nurse first arrives, she is carrying a little metal box. Inside that box is a syringe which containes the nuclear dye.

At first I thought that the metal box was a bit much but then I realized that they were afraid of nuclear contamination.

When I got on the tread mill, I noticed two absorbent pads on either side of the tread mill. Thinking this to be a bit odd, I asked if the pads were for catching sweat from the walkers. They told me that the pads were there in case any nuclear material spilled during the last injection. OK.

After my last injection of dye, the nurse told me that she was now going to give me some saline to wash out the IV. Ah, nothing like a little cleanliness. After all, we wouldn’t want that IV to be dirty now would we.

But wait. Why did she wash out the IV and then remove it from my arm? Oh right. Nuclear contamination! She is going to dispose of the IV and wants to make sure that there is no nuclear material present.

After she pulls out the IV, she puts a piece of gauze over the entry point. As I usually do when I get blood drawn, I reached over to hold the gauze in place. She tells me that she has to hold it because it is radioactive. OK.

Now, lets see if I have this straight. The stuff that they injected into my body is the same stuff that they are afraid might contaminate the place. It kind of makes me wonder how long the stuff stays radioactive.

When I get home, I tell Kathy about the contamination concerns. She is not sure if she wants to kiss me. I might not be safe. I am thinking about hot romance. She is concerned that muffin will glow in the dark.

I finally convinced her that I am safe. After all, if I wasn’t, would they have let me leave? But then again, if I stayed at the heart center, I would put them at risk for contamination. Go figure.