Diastole. The most common view of the heart during a chest X-ray. The heart at rest. The bottom number on your blood pressure. Here your heart is passively filling with blood. The average heart is about the size of a fist and sits middle/middle-left in the chest.Systole. The heart contracting. A very rare catch on a chest X-ray because the heart spends twice as much time in diastole as it does in systole. You notice how tall and narrow the heart has become— no longer shaped like a fist at all. This small hollow muscle, made up of individual cells—any of which can generate a heartbeat if necessary—is now pumping blood not only to itself but to all your major organs and out to the edges of all your capillary beds.
These 2 X-rays are from the same person. I find them amazing. Looking back and forth— the power of the heart, the speed at which things move and shift in our chests each second or less. Literally breathtaking!
