Puttering around in the kitchen this morning, my eyes landed on the pill case where I keep my daily blood pressure medication.
I really don’t like relying on a pill and resisted having to do so until, after research, talking it over with Twin 2 and thinking it through, decided taking a pill a day was a better choice than having a stroke, possibly not dying but ending up living and dependent on others for care.
That’s a fear of mine, that I’d end up like that ding ding uncle character in Breaking Bad ─ Tio Salamanca, the uncle confined to a wheelchair due to a stroke, unable to speak, dependent on others, resigned to communicating by taping on a bell. Consequently, I take the pill, check my pressure most days ... just to be sure, exercise and try to eat right ─ or at least as right as my gut issues will allow.
The pill case should have been empty this morning, ready for me to place the pill I am to take today, but it wasn’t.
OH NO! thought I. I forgot to take yesterday’s pill.
Realizing I’d missed a day scared the bejeebers out of me, but it was just one pill, one day ... how bad could it be.
Evidently, I should have died in my sleep.
Speaking of fright, of scaring myself, I had to laugh last night, when I was watching TV shows I’d recorded, one of which is a little known show called Tales of Terror.
It’s not a very good show, I wouldn’t recommend it, but the TV Guide advertised the episode as having to do with mysterious phone calls from the dead, which interested me enough to set it to tape.
Turns out the calls were being placed 3:30 in the morning from a phone situated in the empty office of a grave yard and, at one point, it looked like I was going to see who or what was placing the calls and realized I was scared enough to have pulled the covers over my eyes so as not to see, but yet to see.
Realizing what I was doing caused me to laugh at myself inside, and though I didn’t stop shielding myself until the scary part was over, I did grab the phone, took a selfie, so I could show you how it was for me, a grown woman, watching a scary movie.
This morning, 30 minutes later .....
Still a little high, but looks like I’m going to live.
It’s a good thing today is not a Pain Cave workout day. Wouldn’t do to exert myself until I’m back down to something like 124 over whatever, which I should be by days’ end.
I take a blood pressure pill each morning; my last check was 118/79. I too resisted until my MD said "a pill or a stroke, your choice". my maternal grandmother had a stroke at age 69 in the early 70s, so precaution by me is necessary.
ReplyDeleteand I know the Black community is more at risk of high blood pressure problems; you are smart to "head it off at the pass", as it were.
YOU GO SHIRLEY!
118 is great! I sometimes get down to 119 and yes, I don't know why high BP plagues the Black community so much, but so it is. Everyone has something and high BP isn't the worst of it, so I consider myself lucky. I'm not afraid of dying. It's the living while wishing I were dead that makes me take the pill.
DeleteMy BP can be all over the place. 150/90 or 110/70 and anything in-between. One thing I've found out that I use at the doctors office. If you take 10 long deep breaths you can lower that upper number by 20 points. Heeey... Maybe that's why exercise works! Yeahhhh.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to try that. I've also heard you can lower a bit by leaning to the left just before the nurse takes your reading.
DeleteI always ask to have mine taken twice. Although I am not one bit scared of the doctor or subject to "white coat syndrome" my BP reading is always higher when I first go in.
ReplyDeleteAt last we have Death with Dignity laws in both your state and ours.
Well that was interesting. I'd never heard of the term "white coat syndrome", looked it up. The only time I ever exhibited a blood pressure level above the normal range, in a clinical setting, was when I was made to wait over an hour for my BP appointment. Don't know how high it got, but I was burning up with aggravation, knew best not to have pressure checked, so walked out. Other than that, I've only been scared of a doctor is when the doctor walking into the room was male. Have had some traumatizing experiences with male doctors, so now always ask for a female.
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