One of the things that influenced the name (URL) was the fact that last Thursday I had a bit of an incident that brought home the fact that I am getting old. Just after going to bed I suffered a series of chest pains that went through my body to my back and down my arms. I've suffered similar before and the last time 5 - 6 years ago it was far more severe. This time it wasn't that bad and it passed within about 4 or 5 minutes and I fell asleep shortly afterwards. I woke up and didn't feel any noticeable effect, whereas the previous time left me feeling drained and ill.
I went to work (I'm a college lecturer) and mentioned it to a few people and later in the day in a meeting mentioned it again and was promptly told to go home and go to hospital, they in fact tried to drive me to hospital. An hour or so later I found myself in hospital going through the usual procedure - sign in - triage... ECG, blood test and a load of questions. They then said I had to have an Xray.
Waiting for the Xray I was pondering the plight of many of my many male family members. Granddad- cancer and heart attack; My favourite Uncle - heart attack and dead at 40 leaving two small boys, stress, smoking and diet related; My Dad heart attacks before 60, cancer of the colon and dead by 65. Then the women - my sister aged about 52 - 3 massive heart attacks and carried on without going to hospital - felt unwell next day and ended up having triple heart bypass. My Mum 65 - died of Thrombosis. The combined average age is about my age.
By the time I'd had the Xray and was called in for a blood pressure test with all this on my mind I wasn't probably in a good place to have a blood pressure test.
The nurse took the first reading and saw the results and said "Hmmm". She's got all the info...
Patient 57, doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, doesn't do drugs, not on any medication, healthy and fit to look at.
She does the 2nd one... "Oh..." She looks surprised. She waits and does the 3rd one. She may have well said F*****g hell! on seeing the results - she didn't, she sort stopped short of Strewth!!! But I definitely got the sense that she was surprised.
The doctor comes in a little later...
"Mr Thompson" He pauses... "Your blood pressure is high" He pauses again, looking at the paperwork. "Surprisingly high given that you don't smoke or drink... Not immediately dangerous, but, high enough for you to have medication. We'll put you on Amlodipine and you'll have to go and see your doctor on a regular basis to have the situation monitored. Make sure you take them as indicated, because the reading was high. It may be that over time the situation will improve and your Doctor may reduce the dosage, but in the short term stick to the dosage and make sure you take them".
I was shocked and I followed him to a waiting area and sat down with some ill people. He came back and I asked...
"Is there anything that I can do to help the situation"?
"No, normally I'd be saying to you... you need to lose weight, or stop drinking or smoking, but you don't have those issues, thing is my job is, I look at you, ascertain what's wrong and then give you the appropriate drugs. It may be that when you visit your doctor your blood pressure will drop and he'll reduce the dose. What I can tell you (he pulls out the Xray) you haven't got anything wrong with you that is obvious, nothing else showed up, it's just that you're getting older and your veins and blood vessels are becoming worn and old... clogged up. The medication wont fix it, but it'll improve the situation and your blood pressure".
He paused.
"You look shocked - you okay"?
"Yeah I am, I never go to the doctors, I'm never ill, so this is a bit of a shock yeah".
"You'll be fine - just make sure you take the drugs and see your Doctor".
A day or so later having rested I went onto the internet and started reading articles and watching videos on the subject. What I'd sensed was that the Doctor wasn't going to suggest any holistic approaches as that's not his profession, but without actually saying it he kind of very subtly inferred that I might look into it by virtue of the sentence about appropriate drugs.
I eat a freight of chocolate, for years I've been saying to myself I've got to cut back on chocolate as I'm aware that of all the things that I do - this is the one thing that is going to kill me. So I started with food and looked at exercise and whether there were things that I could do that might at the very least make me feel like I'm proactive in staying healthy and alive. Thankfully there was. Despite the fact that overall I'm doing a lot of things right, I am doing some stupid things that may well be exacerbating the situation...
So, from the weekend I've made some decisions to make root and branch changes to what I eat and drink to see if it makes any significant difference? One of the things I've learned is that I don't drink near enough water as I should do. I've been walking around very dehydrated.
My concern though is the situation might worsen, I'm slightly optimistic to be honest and that when I see my doctor on Friday the blood pressure reading will be better and there might be a chat that involves talk of reducing the dosage in the longer term. What I'm dreading is anything that goes along the lines of "You need to take it easy - you're an old bloke"...
So, from the weekend I've made some decisions to make root and branch changes to what I eat and drink to see if it makes any significant difference? One of the things I've learned is that I don't drink near enough water as I should do. I've been walking around very dehydrated.
My concern though is the situation might worsen, I'm slightly optimistic to be honest and that when I see my doctor on Friday the blood pressure reading will be better and there might be a chat that involves talk of reducing the dosage in the longer term. What I'm dreading is anything that goes along the lines of "You need to take it easy - you're an old bloke"...
No comments:
Post a Comment