Skip to main content

Welcome to Middle Age

Friday, March 19, 2010

...Well, welcome to middle age...

I

felt the cuff tighten around my bicep. My forearm turned red--it reminded me of beets. Pressure radiated in my hand and I thought it would rupture. Damn it hurt. This wasn't normal. I watched with curiosity to see if it would explode, as if it weren't attached to me, as if it were a YouTube video, but without warning, the cuff loosened, the air released and my arm returned to the white I was used to seeing as the blood flowed normally.

A second later the machine I was attached to started to beep and squawk and flash bright red around a number over 200. It kept squawking and chirping until a nurse came in and hit a button labelled 'alarm off'.

"Your blood pressure is high," she said. Her gaze fixed on the monitor.

"No shit," I thought to myself. Sarcasm might have made me feel a touch better, but it wasn't going to help the situation.

"And glad to see you came running at the sound of the alarm," came another thought I kept to myself. I wondered how long it would have taken for them to respond if I had, as they say, gone into cardiac arrest. Some things are better left undiscovered.

Later, a physician repeated the comment, "You know your blood pressure is high," but unlike so many times in the last couple of years, he added, "We're going to put you on medication," to deal with this hypertension.

I have to wonder why these nurses and physicians have told me I have high BP but offered nothing further until now. Am I supposed to know what to do? As I supposed to ask, please put me on Ditrexaine Hydrocholride Poxin, 50 mg tablets, four times a day, after meals, with a shot of apple juice. I should know this. I guess.

The medicine came in the form of a long needle in my left hand with a long tube and 50 ml IV bag. The solution cooled the surface of my hand as if I had rubbed ice on it. Later I had one of the biggest bruises I've ever had in my life. It lasted over a week. My right bicep was also bruised from the BP cuff.

There's was greater surprise to come during my visit with a cardiologist to have a stress test done. He wouldn't even consider putting me on the treadmill because my BP was too high. Is too high. Ugh!

What gives? I eat loads of healthy food, exercise... I don't smoke. Hell my at rest heart rate is in the 60s. I hit 58 bpm today. How many people can say that? Few, but I still have hypertension and I do notice it. I am reminded of Trudeau in a victory speech, "Well welcome to the 1980s." Well, welcome to middle age.

It's not about diet and exercise to solve the problem, it's meds and meds alone. Go figure. And here is the kicker, I'm not supposed to be exercising or otherwise exerting myself because "you could blow a gasket." The exact and sophisticated words of this heart specialist. Days before I asked about exercising and was told I could do all the cardio I wanted because it was good for me. It leaves me with little confidence when I'm getting contradictory advice. It seems more plausible to me I could "blow a gasket."

My hypertension, it appears, is related to age and genes and not my diet or exercise. While my lifestyle may have some impact, it's at a point where it's beyond my control. I am now on BP meds. Atenolol. A beta blocker, for what it's worth. I have no idea how the med works, but it is supposed to work, yet I have to see evidence of it.

When I picked up my meds, I also bot a BP monitor. An Omron model HEM-741CAN. It's a beauty with slick...never mind. I strap myself in and push a button. The machine does the rest. For some reasons I have images of Glenn Gould measuring and recording his BP with a hand pump and stethoscope. I know how that story ends. Was he taking beta blockers? Probably.

I don't like the fact I have shut down my exercise. I've averaged 6 days a week for the last four years and 6.6 days a week in 2010. Those numbers will fall when all I want is for my systolic and diastolic numbers to fall and I can get back to my workouts. Come on 140 over 80. I can hear the dice rattle across the table.

Posted 2010/03/19 at 20h24ET in Exercise.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If Only We Could Agree

Monday, June 11, 2012 ... have you been accused of misspelling a word you know is correct ... S usanne O’Leary wrote an interesting article on her experience with the variations of the English language in different countries. You know the obvious ones like colour with or without a “u” but less obvious ones like travelled versus traveled. Growing up in Sweden she learnt English in school—the UK variation. In publishing her books, she read reviews where she was criticized for improper spelling. False accusations as it turns out. While I write tire and cozy, it’s not incorrect to write tyre or cosy. Same language. Both accepted. Just different. You can read her write-up here along with the numerous comments posted by readers. I found it interesting, but that’s me. As a Canadian I deal with this issue everyday. I feel her pain when she’s criticized for something based on ignorance. No fun. I was told by a boss that “data are” isn’t correct. It should be “data is.” Read
2 comments
Read more

Days 9-108: Writing a Novel—The Deep Blue Hold

November 25th, 2016 to March 5, 2017 Note: Unedited writings from my notebook for this novel. Square bracket items represent added comments. At 15:53 Office ... And so began a three month odyssey away from writing this novel, The Deep Blue Hold. ... W herein I try to explain why I stopped working on this novel. The shortest answer is I gave up. The short explanation is I struggle with mental health issues (MDD, GAD, PTSD) that paralyse me at times. When it happens, I’m not able to do much of anything. Don’t want to do anything and that includes things one might expect to enjoy. For a while I spent time trying to create some thirty-second videos that would play a word puzzle like a crossword. Here’s the clue. Here’s the blank spaces. And after an interval, one of the letters would appear until all the letters appear. A bit of a crossword puzzle in that sometimes you come to a word where crossover words give you certain letters and you have to fill in the rest. A
Post a Comment
Read more

Words: BONE—GONE—LOAN—BOAN

Friday, March 31, 2017 You’d think BONE would rhyme with GONE but no. This is the English language after all. But BONE does rhyme with LOAN so we’ll spell it BOAN. It will take some time to update all the existing writings but it can be done. Meanwhile, if you smash up your car, the insurance company will allow you to get a LOANER and if you happen to meet the right person you may get a BOANER. boan Post comments on facebook page Posted 2017/03/31 at 17h28ET in Words .
Post a Comment
Read more