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If you completed the heading above with the words "...a heart attack", congratulations. You now know the topic of this here post. As in, I had one. A minor one, but as I'll explain, it could have been much worse. It was about three weeks ago, on a Wednesday night. I lay down in bed, put my head on the pillow,....and felt my nasal passages closing. I honest-to-God could not breathe. I sat upright immediately, took a moment to try to calm down, lay my head down again, and....the same thing happened. As this was going on, my heart rate went ballistic and I was sweating gallons. Finally, I woke my Wunnerful Wifee and, not knowing what else to do, asked to be taken to the emergency room. Because of my past history with anxiety issues, I believed what was happening to me was the result of a panic attack. I thought I would be prescribed some kind of medication to help me calm down and I would be on my merry way back home, grabbing a bit of sleep before heading to work with the intention of making up lost nap-time later. Wrong. Not even close. While lying down in the E.R., an electrocardiogram was taken, and it was determined by the doctor that something concerning my heart was seriously out of whack. Before I knew it, I was whisked upstairs to the fourth floor, to the cardio unit. There, I was hooked up to a heart monitor and given nitroglycerin and Heparin (a blood thinner) intravenously. There I remained for four days, before being discharged on a Sunday morning. I'm going to cover the rest of the story in subsequent posts. Before signing off, I'm going to mention what I feel were the two biggest contributing factors. First, my lifelong love affair with junk food is going to have to end. Now that I've begun watching my diet and started rehab activities at the hospital, my weight is gradually going down from a peak of 280 pounds. I'm six feet in height and I will turn (God willing) 45 in July. I will leave the math up to you, dear readers. Second, a sleep study taken about two weeks after my release from the hospital confirmed something my wife and I suspected for quite some time: I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, which means I stop breathing several times during sleep. My brain was receiving only 74 percent of the oxygen required to keep operating. I'm physically all right, for the most part. Psychologically, I feel like I hit a brick wall after running at full speed, and I'm still in the process of getting up, dusting myself off, and trying to figure out just what the hell happened. Until next time, carbon-based bipeds.... Peace. Tags: health
Current Mood:  drained
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Ah, spring in the Red River Valley of the North.... Icy, slushy spring,..... When a young person's fancy turns to.....sandbags and river levels. Spring in the Red River Valley can be a wonderful time to while away the hours...which I what I did last week on the way home from work. I took my usual route east on 12th Ave North, south on 25th Street and east on Main Ave. Big mistake. Big, honkin' humungous mistake. Especially since I ended up on the inside lane, with no way to turn off and escape. A trip that usually takes about 20 minutes or so turned into a five-hour crawl. That was not a misprint. Five hours. During that time I learned from listening to the radio that the crest level had just been revised to 41 to 42 feet. I have an alternate route mapped out for next time. Pray this never happens to you. On a much happier note, my dad, who suffered a stroke early last week, is doing better. He was transferred from Innovis in Fargo to the rehabilitation ward at Lake Region in Fergus Falls. He's responding well to physical therapy; I noticed improvement in his speech when talking to him on the phone. It's still one day at a time, but there's hope. With all the ups and downs of this flood and the accompanying wild weather, one can ask, why live in a place like this, anyway? Because, ultimately, there's no such thing as perfect security. Sure, it doesn't seem to make much sense to live right next to a river, or build your house on top of an earthquake fault, etc., etc. But is there anyplace on the planet which is perfectly safe? If you read "news of the bizarre" columns from time to time, you learn of all manner of nasty dangers to personal safety, from a chunk of ice falling off a passing airliner to a piece of sharp metal turned into a flying projectile by a lawnmower. Truth is truly stranger than fiction, and a lot more interesting. This, too, will pass, however slowly. In the meantime, do what you can to stay safe. Peace. Tags: natural disasters
Current Mood:  good
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....and why, you ask? Because I'm sick, that's why. Sounds like a good reason to me. With the recent blizzard, the ice-cold conditions following it, and the fact that my wunnerful wifee, Lynn, has had walking pneumonia most of the week, I've caught something....and I don't want it. Someone take it away! Now, I've had coughing fits, attacks of the Mucus-From-Hell and general run-downdedness (it's my blog, so I'll make up words if I want to! ;-) ) before, but this time it's serious. The way I can tell is, my appetite is nearly gone. I've been sick before, but I could still eat if I was hungry enough. This is one of those rare times where I have to take food in little bird-bites or it's not going down. Okay, that's enough for now. If I get too graphic with the symptoms, then I'll really be sick...and so will you, dear readers...and I certainly don't want that to happen. I'm going to take some meds, go to bed and wait for the dog and the cats to join me. Lynn's at band practice (she plays bass clarinet in the local American Legion band) and she'll be home soon. Take care, carbon-based bipeds....it's dangerous out there. Peace. Tags: whining
Current Location: the snow-bound hideout
Current Mood:  sick
Current Music: Echo Sonata for Two Unfriendly Groups of Instruments-P.D.Q Bach
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mybadattitudes's journal
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