Went to the cardiologist today.
It is not looking good.
Largely because my blood pressure was crazy high. 180 over something, when normal is 130. So um… not good.
So I got a brand new med, Atenolol. Plus I am going to be scheduled for a heart ultrasound at St. Paul’s hospital in Vancouver. She is sending me there because the wait time here in Richmond is months whereas with St. Paul’s, its weeks.
I’d just like to go on the record as being in favour of paying higher taxes if it means we finally have enough goddamned ultrasound machines.
Anyhow, the ultrasound is no big deal. But she is also booking me for an angiogram, which according to my cardiologist is a wire inserted into a vein and then threaded through my arteries to look for blockages and possible eliminate them.
But I must have the name wrong, because the Internet says it’s a dye test that does basically the same thing.
I like the second one a lot more. Having a wire in my veins sounds creepy as fuck. And Doctor Ebti, my cardiologist, said there is a one in a thousand chance of complications, one of which is death.
Oh yay. Gimmie more of that. Sounds fun.
Anyhow, I will, of course, comply. Despite appearances, there are some forms of authority I respect, and medical is definitely one of them. Being a doctor means knowing so much more than I do about medicine that even I would not gainsay their advice.
Except that, well, I am not sure I truly have high blood pressure.
I mean, it’s not that I don’t believe Doctor Ebti. My blood pressure was def crazy fucking high today. Blood pressure cuffs don’t lie.
But I have literally never had a reading like that before. I was flabbergasted when she told me. During my recent hospital stay. they took my blood pressure a dozen times and it always came back with my typical result : slightly elevated but still within the normal range of someone my size/shape.
So today’s reading is…. anomalous.
Oh well. I am going to buy a home blood pressure monitor, at her recommendation, and then I suppose we will find out who’s right.
In the meantime, I will comply.
Doctor Ebti seemed really rushed and stressed during our appointment. I had to resist the urge to say, “Hey Doc, slow down, you’re gonna give yourself a heart attack!”
Hah hah hah. I slay me.
The new med, atenolol, has the possible side effects of dizziness and being out of breath from exertion. I already have both of those symptoms.
So this should be interesting. Means that for the next few days, I will have to remind myself to move slowly and carefully, like a ship in a narrow harbor.
This will not come easy to me. For all my life, I have had the tendency to do things abruptly and swiftly. Going slow and easy will really test my patience.
Beats the fuck out of falling and breaking my neck, though.
I will keep you nice people up to date on my condition.
More after the break.
The story so far
Well I am feeling pleased with myself. Instead of doing my usual dickering and dithering, I Googled home blood pressure monitors, found a highly rated low cost model, and ordered it off Amazon.ca.
I also took advantage of the opportunity to get a good price on a bunch of sugar free hard candy, as well as a little chocolate.
Amazon.ca has all these great deals on sugar free stuff, but the good price only kicks in when you are spending at least $25.
Well the monitor was $50, so I was in like Flynn already.
And I like having a good supply of hard candy around.
What can I say, it soothes me to have something sweet to suck on.
Now imagine that I said the previous sentence in the voice of Mister Humphries from Are You Being Served?.
And I just took my first atenolol. Man, what Madison Avenue genius comes up with these drug names? I liked it way better when I thought the name was just “atenol”.
“Finally!” I thought. “A drug with a simple, straightforward, dignified name.”
Alas, no. Upon second glance I learned they slapped an entirely superfluous extra “ol” on the end to make sure it sounds very silly when said out loud.
Like you got lost on the way to the end of the world and ended up just repeating the last syllable like a dolt.
Well, so far I don’t feel especially dizzy. But the real test will be when I stand up. That’s when the room will either start spinning or not.
Bad sign : my head is starting to loll back and forth very slightly.
Anywho, I am trying my best to cling to the dire warnings of my cardiologist and the righteous fear they generated in order to keep myself motivated to clean up my fucking act and save my own damn life.
Which means getting my toxic high blood sugar down to normal. Which means taking my insulin. Which means, ideally, testing my blood.
And I still don’t have nearly enough willpower to go back to lancing my precious fingertips for blood. I just can’t do it. My last experience with the meter was lancing myself over and over and getting an error message instead of a result, and the sad truth is that I lack the intestinal fortitude to get over a thing like that.
I wish I was tougher. But I ain’t.
That leaves the option of taking insulin blind. I’ve done it before, so I don’t know why I am scared to do it now. Just one needle-full of insulin a day could make a huge difference to both my health and how I feel.
Do it to feel good, I tell myself. Forget other, long term motivations. They are not nearly strong enough or pure enough to overcome the depressed side of my mind.
Do it to FEEL BETTER NOW.
Yeah. That might do the trick,.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.