The distractions started with learning of Bob's cancer. He has finished his first round of chemotherapy and still thinks he feels fine. I will ask him in a month if he can still remember specific things and see if his assessment is as good as mine was. At the time I thought I was doing well. The truth was that I was clinging to the edge and now I don't even remember the first three days. I remember the chemo nurses introducing themselves and then I remember waking up three days later in a different location. Everyone tells me that I was awake and communicating but I don't remember it. I wonder what if anything Bob will remember.
Then my diagnosis of pernicious anemia happened. It's not that big of a deal. Take a shot that I can give myself once a month and I am fine. But I am not fine, I am frustrated because I have a 3 page blood work report that I worked damn hard to get perfect. Then I get hit with this, an autoimmune disease that I can't control screwing up the perfect report that I set as my goal. The sad truth is that it isn't only missing the goal that burns. It's the fact that now I have to add another medicine and another diagnosis to the long lists that already exist. I hate showing that paper to anyone as it is. It's embarrassing because it makes me look like a hopeless hypochondriac. Only those diagnosis's are ones that I have actually heard from a doctor and I'm being treated for. Still, there is just too much on that list and I don't cherish the idea of adding even one more thing.
Another problem is looking for something exciting to say about heart health. I'm not getting very excited about the topics I have available. I doubt that I could find 28 new and exciting things to say about Long QT Syndrome or Left Ventricular Hypertrophy. I can't tell if Hypertension is a cardiovascular disease or a kidney disease, and believe me I have no new twists on it. The only way to treat it is to lose weight, exercise, watch your diet and take your pills. It's that straight forward. Everyone knows it, most people don't do it and the ones who do aren't perfect at it. I must say that the lifestyle changes only sometimes control my hypertension or blood glucose. A slight infection or stressful week at work can send both soaring. Or one or both can suddenly become unstable for reasons that I can't pinpoint. It's baffling and frustrating, but it is what it is. I can see why some people just give up on it and live like they want to live, as much as that idea just panics me. My entire childhood was spent watching my father's slow slide into heart and kidney disease. He died of sudden cardiac arrest as a result of Long QT Syndrome when I was 25.
So here is the Heart Health Laundry List:
- Watch your weight
- Watch what you eat
- Exercise daily:
- Take your pills
- See your doctor
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo This is a really entertaining Youtube video and worth watching despite the fact that the doctor claims that exercise cures death a few times.
- http://www.everydayhealth.com/blogs/living-with-heart-disease/heart-diseasethe-emotional-tolls-it-takes A discussion of the emotional fall out of living with heart disease from someone who's lived it. It tells of some surprising warning signs of heart problems in women.
- http://blog.drsinatra.com/blog/heart-health-nutrition/heart-healthy-snacks Healthy snack suggestions for Super Bowl Sunday, though I've been told by jocks that if you do this you will be hated.
- And today's link... http://www.gradydoctor.com/2012/02/spirits-and-groundhog-day.html An Atlanta doctor wrote a post about her struggles dealing with caring for men suffering from the effects of alcohol on the heart.
Thanks for stopping by. Hope you enjoy the links.
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