Today, the cavalcade of medical fun that has characterized 2025 for me continued, with my first ever PFT.
It’s basically 20 minutes of breathing in various ways and will probably be the most innocuous medical test I’ll ever undergo. It did leave me a little lightheaded, though.
I made my way to Vancouver General Hospital and found that I was very early for my appointment. I figured this was a sign that I wouldn’t be able to find Section 3 easily and would need the extra time to navigate. I was somewhat right.
When I did find Section 3 (a nice shade of green, not hospital green), I was still about half an hour early. I filled out a form and then amused myself in the waiting room with my own thoughts, since cell phone use is forbidden in this particular part of the hospital. It’s also one level underground and concrete, so reception may have been dicey, anyway.
While I waited, an older man went to the reception desk. The woman there carefully explained that he didn’t need to be there, as it is his wife who is being looked at for something. She said his wife would get a call tomorrow. He nodded, then headed off.
And returned, where she explained all of this again. He again headed off. But there was something about his gait that, as the kids would say, seemed a little suss.
You guessed it–he returned a third time. She was very patient with this not-patient. He finally shuffled off for good. Or for at least as long as I was there.
A very short woman with tall pants came out about 15 minutes before my appointment–yay–and brought me into a small exam room. In the corner was a glass booth with a seat and some apparatus at about mouth level. She asked for my height and weight and I sat in the booth, with the door open. She put a pair of plugs on my nose and had me test the mouthpiece (kind of like a fixed snorkel) to make sure it was positioned correctly. We began.
The setup looked a lot like this image I found. The mouthpiece is apparently part of a thingie called a spirometer. Fortunately, I didn’t have to hold the mouthpiece like this guy, who, yes, I’m going to say it, totally looks like he’s practising a blow job.
For the testing, I would breathe normally, or at least as normally as I could with my nose clipped shut and my mouth wrapped around a snorkel thing. Then she would tell me to breathe in deeply. She would accentuate this by saying, in a very excited tone, “Breathe in! Up UP UP UP UP!” until it was time to breathe out (sharply). She would switch to, “Out out OUT OUT OUT OUT!” past the point that seemed reasonable to me, but I am not a breathologist. I coughed on one of the first extreme exhalations and swallowed some spit. She asked if I needed water. I said no. I surprised myself by being right.
There were also a few times she had me suck in some sort of spray stuff that can affect your breathing. It was relatively flavorless. I’m glad I don’t have to use inhalers.
After the first few minutes, she declared the plugs inadequate and swapped them out for ones that clamped more firmly. I wasn’t sure I liked the new plugs.
A few of the tests required me to breathe in deeply, hold my breath, then exhale. These required the door of the glass booth to be closed. Because it is glass, I didn’t feel claustrophobic, more like a bizarre modern art exhibit, like “Man’s struggle with technology” or something. The mouthpiece I sucked on would become interactive during these tests, sending a weird pop of air at my mouth at the end, as if to say, “That’s enough!”
I had to redo a few of the tests because I wasn’t quite hitting the mark on a few of them, like a diva missing the high notes of an aria. The testing lady was very understanding. It still went fairly quickly. She ended it by saying I was done and just left. I also left and she reminded me to take my bag, which I then went back for. I got the feeling this was someone who missed no detail.
The whole experience was odd, everything about it felt unnatural, skirting right on the edge of being actively unpleasant without ever crossing it.
As mentioned, I felt a little lightheaded, but that was all. Still, I won’t be sad if I never have another PFT. Pfft to PFT, one might say.
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