Heart Model Recall

Since I'm supposed to be finishing a short story right now, I thought I would procrastinate by posting some of the notes I made about a month ago, during my brief stint as a heart model. My other incentive is Karen Maxwell, who reminded me during her visit last weekend that it looked like I was welshing on my promise to write about it. So, here it is, largely unedited bullet points from my halcyon days of cardiologists, ultrasound, and grainy images of my aorta:

• We've got a total of six models for three scanning beds. The SOP is two hours on, two hours off.
• The scanning techs don't mind if you fall asleep, although yesterday my tech Mark woke me up when it looked like some important people were wandering by. It took about ten minutes, but when they finally walked up, the grayest-headed among them said, "Aha! A model who is actually awake!" Score one for Mark and me.
• Lying on a bed while people scan your heart would seem like the easiest job in the world, except for a few things. Laying on your side without moving very much can be a challenge. Also, spending any amount of time in a cold convention center can give you the sniffles. Now take your shirt off and cover half your chest with ultrasound goo. It gets cold. Sometimes they give you a blanket to keep yourself warm, but I didn't know that at first and toughed it out my first two hours. Consequently, my first two hours kind of sucked.
• I spotted a couple of friends on the way in this morning, wearing red and white jumpsuits that read "bad" and "good," respectively. They were, apparently, cholesterol. Another heart model explained to me that they and their cohorts stood on escalators, sometimes getting in the conventioneers' way, sometimes helping them out. That's what cholesterol does! See how much your heart is like a bunch of medical professionals checking their Blackberries at a Chicago convention center?
• Our booth has more square footage than our condo, and probably cost the company as much to rent for three days. They have several TVs (like our condo), a MacBook Pro (very like our condo) which is connected to a $50,000 base station used to process the imaging from ultrasound paddles attached to it (not at all like our condo). Because I was curious about other machines, I offered to rotate with other heart models, but I was met with apathy and in one case resistance because the guy said he'd bonded with his scanner. All right.
• While hanging out waiting for direction today, another demonstrator started talking to me and another heart model about the necessity of getting female heart models in, since having topless women demonstrating machines would be a significantly bigger draw. We chuckled politely. Even though it was the first time I'd heard it, it didn't feel like a very original joke, and since I'm a couple decades past adolescence, it's lost a lot of its titillation. Then the guy started talking about how great it would be to get the female models lubed up with ultrasound goo, at which point I said, "Um, awkward." The other model left. The guy who made the comment started a new conversation, the "my machine is better than your machine" tack, with which I could not argue, since I didn't design my machine, I just sat under it.
  
• One of the booth presenters this morning walked in with a cheese and ham croissant that she wasn't going to eat and offered it to us. Another heart model, Spike, whom I had helped yesterday by looking up CTA routes to McCormick Convention Center, had not eaten breakfast and took her up on the offer. He went back to the area they designated for us to stow our stuff and returned about three minutes later. "Did you eat that already?" I asked. "I was starving," he explained. We made jokes about their scanning his chest and discovering it, completely whole, lodged in his heart. That's what passes for humor in this place.
  
• Convention food costs, as Spike observed, are "minibar prices." Other, smarter models brought their food. I am not smart, not in that way.
  
• Yesterday, I made the mistake of buying a Starbucks "Skinny Vanilla Latte" in "Venti," which would mean "Large" if "Large" weren't the smallest Starbucks size. This drink, which was skim milk, sugar-free vanilla, and I guess espresso, messed me up almost the entire day. My stomach hurt a couple hours after drinking it. By the end of the day, it hurt to move my eyes. Even being allowed to lay back and sleep on the table kind of sucked when the pounding behind my eyes would not stop. When Brandi picked me up afterwards to go grocery shopping, I leaned heavily on my cart like someone four decades older. I can see how old people really love those walkers with wheels and seats, because my kludged version worked great.