More adjustments

 

I do have some ideas moving around my head about current events, honest.  I think I just have to sit and write them down so they can be coherent.  The biggest thing rolling around my head is a growing sense of disappointment in my fellow man (the species not the gender, although sometimes it’s the gender too).  Ignorant, complacent, and way too quick to hurt others physically and mentally.  Anyway, that wasn’t the reason for my writing.  I have more adjustments to my new reality to talk about.

I finally had to get my medications adjusted.  My blood pressure was staying too high (130s and 140s over 80s and 90s), and when I’d rest (sitting or lying down) then my pulse would drop to the upper 50s.  I could tell something wasn’t quite right as I couldn’t stand up or bend over without dizzy spells.  So, a discussion with my regular doctor later, and I’ve added a med and cut the dose of another in half.  I’m doing better so far, but I’m sure there will be other adjustments that need to be made.

Being on a low sodium diet for over a month now, when I happen to eat something processed or, for lack of a better term ‘normal’ for an American diet, I cant’ help noticing how salty it tastes.  It really doesn’t take long for your tastes to adjust.  Even some things homemade are going to have to be adjusted going forward, if for no other reason than they are now too salty for me in taste to enjoy.

I am starting to be able to do more physically.  Which has been nice, since the peas are starting to come in and I am able to do pickings.  I can also continue to check plants and even pull a few weeds as necessary.  I do try to keep in mind that I’m not back to normal, but sometimes it’s difficult.  Mentally?  I’m not sure where I’m at.  Am I still trying to adjust, to deal with what has happened?  Has it not really sunk in?  Sometimes I wonder.

Recent reflections

 

Given recent events, I suppose I could take some time and comment on them and maybe even provide some witty commentary.  But I’m just too selfish, or self-centered at this point, so I’m going to write about my continuing recovery from my heart attack.  I’m still recovering physically, so where I am at now isn’t ‘normal’ for me yet (at least I hope).  There have been some recurring themes and ideas these past few weeks (it’s been almost four weeks), so here we go.

In order to better take care of myself and improving overall nutrition, I had to adjust what I eat.  Cholesterol, fats, and sodium must be taken into account and scrupulously watched.  When you have to do this, or if you just want to do this (it’s not a bad idea you know), one tool that is very useful is the nutrition labels on foods you buy.  At the same time, this tool is becoming somewhat of a thorn in my side.  A bane of my existence if you will.  There have been a number of times when I’ve had to stop myself and adjust what I would eat because of what the nutrition label said the food contained.  Either the sodium was too high, or something else was out of whack.  Now of course some of the biggest culprits are those items euphemistically labeled as ‘convenience foods’.  I tell you what, it’s certainly not a convenience to me to get my entire daily allowance of sodium and fat in a single sitting (I may be exaggerating, but only by half at best).

As I am still recovering, I am still having to remind myself that I am not yet whole.  My activities are still somewhat limited.  There have been a few occasions where I have had to stop what I was doing and sit down because I could tell the exertion was ‘too much’.  There is an element of frustration, as I feel like my body has ‘betrayed me’.  There are things I was able to do not that long ago, but I can’t at the moment because a ‘twinge’ or dizzy spell will come on and I need to stop.  I certainly hope this will go away soon, and it’s difficult to have to wait for that time to arrive.

As a final note, I have been personally overwhelmed to see and hear the amount of prayers, well wishes, and expressions of concern these past few weeks by friends and family.  There are times when you wonder whether your presence is noticed or has an effect on others.  This showed me I do have an effect and presence.

A difficult post

 

Admittedly, this is a difficult post for me to write.  Having just experienced it, I felt it necessary to put this down as a reminder and perhaps a cautionary tale.

The drama started officially on Sunday.  I say officially because when I look back, the warning signs of something about to happen were there.  I got the last ‘warning’ the day before, and if I had been paying attention I would have done something then.  But I could excuse them all away.  I was getting older, I was out of shape, and so forth.  The last one I really couldn’t excuse away, but I told myself I would be okay, and besides I didn’t have time to stop and deal with health issues.  Forces outside myself decided I didn’t get a vote in the matter.

Anyway, I woke up a 4 am to my chest hurting.  As I said before, this wasn’t the first time it had done this.  I could tell immediately the pain was different from previous times.  I was up and down for almost three hours, trying to get it to go away.  It wouldn’t.  Not when changing position, not when taking an antacid, not by drinking water.  I tried to deny what my fears were telling me, I was having a heart attack or some other cardiac issue.  I then tried to get ready for the day (going to church) and trying to say to myself ‘if it doesn’t stop by this point, then I’ll go in to get checked out’.  Finally, by 8:30 I couldn’t tolerate the discomfort or deny there was something significant going on.  I told my wife about the pain.  At that point I started having cold sweats and when she touched my hands they were cold and clammy.  The only question in her mind was ‘ambulance or drive ourselves in’.  We dropped our children off at church so they could be with friends afterwards and drove to the emergency room.  I could have called for an ambulance, but I was still fighting some denial about what was truly going on.

Once we arrived at the ER, the drama was sidelined for a moment by a small comedy of errors.  My given first name can be used for either gender, but for whatever reason, registration marked me down as ‘female’.  After a few questions and reassurances that I was what I said I was, we got the registration straightened out and settled in.  Then the tests and questions began.  As they went through my symptoms, the doctors and nurses couldn’t say for sure what was going on.  Cardiac issue?  Possibly.  There were other items to consider as well.  We do the first EKG.  Comes back ‘normal’.  OK, let’s do blood tests to confirm, but it’s probably not as bad as we were thinking.  So, in case it was stomach acid related, they gave me a strong antacid.  The antacid did nothing for the pain, so the fears were starting to return.  We started talking about whether this was angina and how I would go home that day and follow up with a cardiologist. 

Then, the blood tests came back.  Elevated enzymes showed I was having a heart attack.  They immediately started me on heparin (a blood thinner) and gave me a large dose of nitroglycerin under the tongue.  Almost as soon as it dissolved, my pain went away and I was relieved (at least the pain had stopped).  But, I had to make life interesting.  My blood pressure fell and I was starting to pass out.  In comes the crash cart, and out go the visitors (a priest from my church was there by this time).  Fortunately the cart was not needed, and my blood pressure returned to a somewhat normal number.  Then they did EKG number two with some of the leads on the back.  Still normal. 

At this point, they moved me to the Cardiac ICU and wait there for the catheterization team to arrive.  The doctors decided a heart catheterization was needed to determine the cause.  I couldn’t tell you if it was a short or long session, since I’ve never been on this side of it before.  I’ve been on the outside, waiting for the results to come through.  I was also trying to focus on that moment, being on the table and trying to regain some sense of ‘normal’. 

The results?  Two of my coronary arteries are narrowed about 40%.  The official diagnosis is ‘coronary artery disease’.  The narrowing is not so significant as to require surgical intervention like a stent or bypass.  At this point, we are going to try and deal with the situation through medication and see if that will ‘right the ship’.  The good news in all of this?  The current theory is I had a clot that partially blocked the coronary artery, the official term is ‘Non-ST segment Elevated Myocardial Infarction’ (NSTEMI).  That, and the fact I came in fairly early on in the process meant the damage to my heart was minimal.

So, after a two-day hospital stay (needed primarily to ensure I wasn’t having issues with my new medications), I am now home to deal with this new time in my life.  I have kidded with my wife for years that I was ‘indestructible’ and to a certain degree I think I believed it.  Now I have had this happen and I know my life can end at any time.  But with the right combination of diet, exercise, and medication, I can push that time off for quite a while.

Let’s put it out of our misery…..

 

(Image credit http://failblog.cheezburger.com/thereifixedit/)

I haven’t written for a while. Biggest reason for that is that life took over. One of these days, I’ll have life under control (yeah, right). I also haven’t been overly motivated to write. It’s not that I haven’t had ideas bouncing around my head, but none of them seemed to flow into a coherent thought stream that I could write down and not growl at the end result because it didn’t meet my standards (yes, believe it or not I do have them). This however, is something that won’t leave my mind.

There comes a time, when you are working on a project, that if you’ve made too many adjustments and/or corrections, you need to break the whole thing down and start over from scratch. I’m starting to believe that we, in this country, have hit that point with health care. We’ve been trying to make adjustments/corrections for quite a while now, and the end result bears no resemblance to either where we began, or the desired result.

We’re in the beginning stages of implementing the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare, as some would have it). The desired result (at least for those who’ve championed the legislation) is for health care to be accessible and affordable for everyone. It’s still rather early to determine if either component of the desired result is in reach, but I’ve got a feeling there are still a number of issues that need to be dealt with.

I’ve written about this issue before.  There are two common points of agreement (or maybe one depending on how you look at it) on this issue: 1) the current system is insufficient to provide affordable and accessible care for all. And 2) changes need to be made. Once you move beyond those two points, paths rapidly diverge. Is the focus on cost, or eligibility? Do we need to look at the care side of the equation, or the financial side?

I believe all of these areas need to be looked at, because there are issues in each of these areas. The problem, at least to me, is that each of these areas need to be addressed in the context of the other areas, but they’re not. They are each being addressed in a vacuum, as if each can be ‘adjusted’ or ‘corrected’ as needed without looking at the effect on the other areas. I think the reasoning behind such an approach is: we hope we only need to make minor adjustments in order to achieve the desired result. Perhaps we think it will be a ‘magic fix’. Whatever the thought process is, the end result is something that is unwieldy, cumbersome, and ineffective.

I realize what I’m putting forward may be extremely unpopular, but I truly think the system needs to be ‘blown up’. Ensure nothing of the previous system remains, and then start putting something completely new together. I’ll be completely honest, though.  I am not going to push this with a lot of energy, because until there is agreement on what the end result needs to look like, we’re going to end up with something that looks amazingly like what we’ve got now. I just don’t hold a lot of hope that the current crew in charge, or those that want to be in charge, would work on this in a way that is best for everyone.

Something for Facebook

If anyone follows me on Facebook, you notice that my profile picture is from a long time ago. It also is from a time that was very difficult to get through. This week is recognized as CHD (congenital heart defect) awareness week. Please read through the notice that is there if you are not aware of the effects of CHD not just on the children born with them, but also the families involved.