Archives for November 2011

I’m pretty much the worst patient ever.

I always find myself overdue for my annual exam or dodging check ups for things that bother me.

I hate taking medication and won’t even take Tylenol for a headache because, “it will pass and I’ll just ride it out.”

I guess part of me is a conspiracy theorist who believes the government is trying to control everyone and the pharmaceutical companies are in on it by advertising so heavily that we all think we need to be taking something.  It used to be car commercials or beer commercials or makeup commercials.  Now every other commercial is a drug commercial.

Restless legs
Incontinence
Allergies
Asthma
Erectile Dysfunction
Depression
Arthritis
Having a period (WTF?  I thought that was part of being a woman, but now there are all kinds of birth control pills that take your period away)

Seriously, after watching all these happy looking, attractive people on the commercials, we all feel a little “less than” and think maybe that pill is going to fix what ails us.

Not me.  I’m always slathering myself in coconut oil or drinking apple cider vinegar or making paste from baking soda and putting it on everything.  I’m like the dad from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” who’s convinced that Windex cures everything.  Except for me it’s baking soda.

I’ve had to learn the hard way that some issues are dangerous enough that they cannot be solved with baking soda.

High blood pressure for example.

I’ve been fighting it off for over a year.  Although I don’t know if you’d really call it fighting as much as shaking a stick at it and pretending that’s working.

On Friday morning I had an “episode” that kind of scared me.

My vision was pretty blurry as I was getting ready for work that morning.  I brushed it off as just being tired after getting up at 5:30am for my aerobics class.  On my way to work it seemed even worse and by the time I was sitting at my desk, I was straight up seeing black spots out of my right eye.

It was annoying me enough that I didn’t just ignore it, but also whined about it to my boss.  He seemed concerned and came over to make sure I wasn’t having a stroke at my desk.  Then, one of my sweet co-workers came in and got the gist of what was going on.  She pretty much immediately dragged me across the street to CVS to get my blood pressure checked.

Thank God for the amazing people I work with.  Especially the ones who take this health-related stuff so much more serious than I do :)

Turns out my BP was 168/111.  Not good.

At all.

Andy rushed out to the office with the BP meds I was on after having Grace and he also brought my BP monitor so I could check myself again throughout the afternoon.

Everyone in the office wanted me to rush out to the doctor, but his office was closed that day and I couldn’t be bothered anyway.  I had too much I wanted to get done.  This was mucho inconvenient as it was.

The prescription brought my pressure back down to a more reasonable range (imagine that!) and I was able to finish out the workday, not without great urging by my work family to get an appointment on my calendar STAT!

I called the doctor this morning and they are fitting me in on Wednesday afternoon at 3:30.  I’m going to have to come crawling back a year after seeing him and ignoring everything he told me to do.  In my defense, I was a hormonal, breastfeeding mess who was not willing to give up breastfeeding only 4 months in.

You know, better to risk death than formula.  Oh Lord have mercy!

This time I’m in a better place.  I understand that this is serious.  I’m losing weight (albeit at a snails pace) and I’m willing to do what it takes to get this problem under control.  Even if it means taking a pill.

The next thing you know I’ll have a barcode implanted in my wrist.

Just kidding.