My Wierd Eye Appointment

Since I am now well into my 40's and am starting to hold books a bit further away from my head to read, I went to have an eye appointment.

The Doc's assistant thought I looked unwell, and insisted on taking my blood pressure. It was 255 over 150. Then she LITERALLY left the room at a dead run. Less than six seconds later, the eye doctor came in and told me to go to the E/R, where I spent the rest of the morning getting stuck with 9 needles (6 to get the IV, 3 for shots before they could get the IV in. It took 2 hours. I went through three electronic blood pressure machines in the E/R. None of them were calibrated to read a BP that high. They went through two nurses to get one with the hand strength to pump up the manual cuff)

Oddly enough, one of the drugs they pumped me with ACTUALLY WORKED. When I left my BP was 110 / 63. It is the 43rd different blood pressure med I have tried.

I was told in the E/R about a year ago that if I could not control my blood pressure, I would have a stroke within 5 years. I looked up the stats and he was right, the chances are in the high 70% range of a stroke, with a 50 % chance of that stroke being fatal or debilitating.

I have not been comfortable for a single moment since getting this sentence. I have confronted major familial demons and stirred shit up that I thought long over, simply because I might not have time to do it later. I have given up Karate because I am not fit enough, even moderate exercise can cause a major blood pressure spike, and that may mean stroke. I made one exception to this, going to the first saturday class taught be one of my former students (former only in that he now outranks me, and I have been learning from him rather than the other way around for years now)

Since that day, literally everything I do is weighed against the possiblity of a stroke. "Is this worth my life?" has been a frequent thought.

Today was a bright glimmer of hope. The stuff they used WORKED. And it seemed to work very quickly. I have a script for it, and on thursday I pick up a home monitor and see if it will keep working.

I might be around for a bit longer than I have been thinking.

It feels pretty good.