Tag: Health
A stent? Seems everybody has one
Get to a certain age and the conversation often shifts to personal health issues. (Sorry ’bout that.)
I am surprised by the number of people who tell me about their stents, for instance. This matter of running a probe from your wrist and up your arm into your heart is surprisingly commonplace. It’s also amazing what relatively small community hospitals are doing nowadays. (OK, ours is now a subsidiary of Mass General Hospital in Boston … like the best. Not that I really considered that at the time I was being wheeled off to God knows what.)
But that leads to other things like learning that my clerk at the hardware store and I have the same cardiologist, or did till said doc moved to Florida. (Well, that has to be a hot market for cardiac work!)
It also brings up others who say that they, too, felt no pain … thought it was a breathing issue rather than a pending heart attack.
Or that their cholesterol levels, like mine, had been normal.
As a factor, I’m convinced stress was a major component in my case. Seventeen years between marriages, with all of the relationship uncertainty, along with working under relentless deadlines as I did at the newspaper must have taken a toll. Besides, I wasn’t getting regular exercise in that period, other than dashing to and from the composing room.
As one buddy said, if you lined up a hundred guys our age, he would have been the first to be tagged for this problem and I would have been the last.
Well, he’s had a few health issues, but cardio hasn’t been one of them.
For you younger readers, take warning.
Cheers! And good luck …
First anniversary of a big day
On this day a year ago, we woke up to a big snowfall – the biggest of the season, as it turned out. It was coming down like crazy, and I was even hoping to get out on my cross-country skis, at least do a few loops around our yard, unlike the previous year.
Thought I’d clean off my wife’s car first and the steps and walkway out front, just in case.
But that’s when I had to stop and try to catch my breath. I’d felt this sensation, something like what I’d heard asthma described like, several times in the past few months. I thought it was the aftermath of a nasty bug the previous fall, and several people in the know said it sounded like a walking pneumonia. Once, in particular, it hit me at the end of a length in the indoor swimming pool. Another time, while carrying a three-year-old down from Mount Agamenticus. After the third time, I went in to see my primary care physician, who said my lungs sounded fine, ordered an X-ray, and scheduled a stress test. Oh, yes, and if the symptoms returned, go straight to the emergency room.
Yeah, yeah. Just what I needed – more inconclusive tests.
So as the snow hit just two days before the stress test was scheduled and the symptoms returned, I figured I could ride it out until my appointment.
That’s when my elder daughter showed up. “My Prius is cleaned off and warmed up. Get in.” My wife seconded the motion, and reminded me they had my doctor in their corner.
OK, drop me off. I’ll give you a call when I’m done.
Remember, there was no pain. No chest pain, especially. This was a breathing problem.
WAY BEHIND IN THE YARD AND HOUSEWORK
In the cardio aftermath, I was generally laying low, apart from my immersion in some serious revisions of my previously published novels.
And then? I looked at the window and saw an outburst of green – on the trees, especially. I had a sharp sense of having lost a big chunk of time.
We had some hard storms this winter, and some major branches came down from our trees. We were lucky they missed hitting roofs, cars, or outdoor furniture.
Still, it’s meant a lot of cleanup, and there’s more work to be done with a chainsaw.
The gardens, too, are behind schedule. I never got to the beach to collect seaweed, back before the seasonal out-of-town parking ban kicked in. Hauling those buckets and extracting the collected bags from the car trunk takes exertion, beyond what’s considered safe during recovery. I mean, I’d hate to take a nitroglycerin pill at the beach while working alone.
Nor did I get to some interior painting and picture-framing, as planned this winter. Some? There’s a lot.
We are watching some big changes downtown, especially where the city is carving away a hillside to extend our riverfront park and open space for new housing as well as open direct access to a hilltop park above, which is also being expanded and developed. This development, which crept up on me while I was recovering and not heading down that way to the indoor pool, will greatly enhance the central focus of the city.
Downtown is also undergoing the razing of an old retail block to make room for a five-story retail and worker housing structure. It will also eliminate what’s been an annoying traffic obstruction.
Glad I’m back in action. Wonder what else I’ve been missing.
RETURNING TO THOSE DAILY LAPS, TOO
Getting back into swimming laps – however gingerly – feels so good. As did the last few choir sessions before the ensemble took its break for the summer.
I’m still not up to my usual half-mile – 18 laps (or 36 lengths) in the indoor pool – but I am feeling secure as long as I don’t overdo it, and I am pretty much back in the water daily.
One thing I became aware of after the stent was inserted was just how close I’d come to having a heart attack in the previous months. I’d felt the breathing problem in the pool, for one thing, and also while carrying a three-year-old down off Mount Agamenticus in November. Am sure glad the event didn’t hit on either of those, I’d hate to traumatize either a kid or the lifeguards.
About a month ago, when I finally got the OK to return to the pool, I realized how much had passed since I last saw the guards or some of my fellow swimmers. Some are coming up on high school graduation, for one thing – and the banter is always a lift.
Even when one tells me that for the kind of obstruction I was having, had it turned into a heart attack, the odds weren’t in my favor. As she said, nine out of ten never make it to the hospital. And as I’ve been saying, I’m feeling very blessed.
BIG DIETARY CHANGES, OH, BOY …
Yeah, it seems everyone these days is on some kind of restricted diet. Just try throwing a party or inviting others over for dinner, you soon learn all about it.
My cardio incident has had me essentially eliminating eggs, butter, and cheese from what I eat – three glorious mainstays that now get in only as gingerly applied additives or, for the cheese, in low-fat and fat-free versions. And it’s red meat no more than once a week. Look up the Healthy Heart stuff if you want. I’m trying to be stricter than that, at least for a while.
Simply reading the labels on most prepared products is a horror story. Do you know how many bad fats show up in cookies or doughnuts or, oh my, just about everything snack like? And forget fast food along the highway. No, I’m not stopping at McDonald’s for a salad and having to inhale all that lovely fry-vat grease in the air. At least around the corner there’s sushi. Or a bagel with jam or jelly, no cream cheese, though lox might pass the test. You get the point.
My cholesterol levels weren’t bad before, but since the stent went in, my medical professionals want them even lower. Well, I pushed the profile down sharply in five or six weeks. It can be done.
I’m considering this as perpetual Lent of a Greek Orthodox sort, with a few tradeoffs like red wine thrown in. OK, mine’s not really that strict – I’m not vegan – but I am applying many of the lessons we gleaned from observing a strict Advent back in ’16.
Among the negative tradeoffs is caffeine, which my primary care physician wants cut down to a cup a day, max. I’m there now but do miss the second big mug (café au lait style, heavily laced with one-percent milk and sugar) as well as the midafternoon pickup. A substitute instant brew found at the natural foods store is surprisingly satisfying, apart from its lack of kick. The lingering question is do I shift to decaf, which strikes me like cheating but cuts out the caffeine? Any suggestions?
Well, the caffeine reduction is essential if I’m to address another issue. Will spare you the details, for now. Maybe forever.
At least the garden’s kicking in. A sorrel sauce on the asparagus almost has me forgetting mayonnaise, melted butter, or a runny egg or two atop the spears. Do I cheat with the fresh whipped cream when the strawberries hit in a few weeks? I’m already planning on that low-fat mayo when the tomatoes finally flood us in August – you don’t need the bacon to create a great sandwich, especially if you use basil instead of lettuce.
I hate to sound grumpy. This getting older does have its downsides, doesn’t it?
Jnana's Red Barn 