undershaker

It started March 2008. I cannot recall the day, middle of the month, though -- not quite my birthday -- & I were at work. Doing the data-entry, appointment-check-in grind, staring at a computer -- when my eyes filmed over. Particularly, the right eye; just a grey, quiksilver, almost, blotchiness across my field of vision. Largely to the right, I figured it right eye -- might have been left?

I don't know.

Went to the doctor, to have the event considered. Chalked it up to an ocular migraine, & indeed, seemed simple enough: had lain down on a leather sofa a coupla stories up, had a styrofoam cup of water, trouble seemed to dissipate.

Of course, at the doctor, on this occasion, my blood pressure started to run high. Systolic reading in the high 140s, into the 150s. (At my initial consult with the MD, March '04, I distinctly recall 120/80, or maybe 124/76. High-normal, but not problematic.) & over the next year, I tried to regulate my pressure. Cut out Taco Bell -- all the sour cream! -- & still havn't had it more than two years on. My frequent usage of the Dollar Menu, which started off around the time of the Tigers '06 World Series appearance, & after I had gotten squared away in my own third floor flat (after eighteen months or so in a town-house with two roommates) only a block & an half from a Mickey D's, dropped off.

I still have yet to fully kick the Golden Arches.

Did these, kept up my active lifestyle, two jobs, lots of time out of the house, but blood pressure didn't decrease. It spiralled upward to the heavens, & an episode of light-headedness around end of February 2009, right before a fairly major trip to Alaska & then the West Coast, culminated in a reading of 173/121. Just exorbitant.

I went on blood pressure medication (Benazopril, 10 mg, once a day).

I coincided this diagnosis with guilt. I was not thirty, hadn't even gotten within a year's breath of it, & I was on blood pressure meds. I felt bad for my mother: after she had raised me right, fed me with homemade dinners & balanced lunches (at least thru the start of middle-school, when I first went to public school & had the option of hot-lunch; the parochial school before that did not offer it), had encouraged me not to catch TEH FAAAAAAT, I had done just that. But, I started a new course, only skim or soy milk in my chai or latte, no more late nute runs to Johnny Five's (or Johnny V's, as it actually goes), smaller portions generally. Lost 25 pounds, from 260 to 235 between the first script for Benazopril & my next MD's visit (annual check-up... I had been in the office a time or three between Feb '09 & the following April).

Blood pressure, starting from April '09, ran normal, or closer to, at least; usually in the 116/78 range.

Still, I was having the occasional visual quiksilver, all the same. Had another instance like the first, in Feb '10, then the worst, possibly skirting death, in June, on the ninth. I had just run across a cousin of mine, amid my agency's work, & (in hindsight, unrelatedly) had the most horrific bout of upper-chest tightness & sweating, plus more blurry vision, of my life.

I gave myself twenty minutes to regain composure, walked about the office, & phoned my doctor's office. Needed to get in as soon as possible. I made an appointment for that Friday; convenient, since I planned on taking the day off anyway, personal day, to watch the World Cup opener, Mexico-South Africa at a bar in my town's Latin neighbourhood.

Went to the appointment before the game, did the standard things to open, weighing, blood pressure. Down to 227 pounds. (Huzzah! My goal had been 225 by end of summer '09, but in the event, was prolly unrealistic to expect thirty pounds off in six months.) Met with the MD, described my symptoms. He ordered an ecocardiogram.

Scheduled it for 2nd July.

Went in that day, had a rather smart young ultrasound tech -- Kelly... quite a babe -- do the scan. Only went about fifteen minutes, & started timely, so I had only ten or so -- after straightening a billing issue, from a previous visit -- to watch the disputatious Uruguay-Ghana match. (I was rooting for Uruguay, as Ghana had just knocked out the U.S., but for the Lions to lose on that hand-ball... Let's just say I am glad Netherlands brought the pain the next round.) The eco seemed fine.

I would be proved wrong.

That nite, though, I met my mother at Red Robin for burgers & owned up, odd as the venue would seem for such an admission, that I am hypertensive, & had been on blood-pressure med since the previous March. But it was all in all a festive moment.

Two weeks later, I got a call. Also from mom. It was about a message from my MD's assistant, needing to talk to me about my eco results. In the hub-bub of the summer, another fat -- fatter than I, even -- gal met, I had changed my number. Not, mind you, to keep ahead of the pizza & pie slanging dame from Port Washington, but instead due a total collapse of my mobile's screen. Pulled it out of my pocket on a Saturday at the Solstice, on a date with the hefty dame, no less, & went to check the time. Screen just cold shorted out on me.

Thankfully, I have a second line -- for God knows what reason, other than convincing phone-sales reps for Sprint -- & went to using that one. My doctor, alas, did not have that line, nor had I updated them.

Oddly enough, of course, I had been thinking, all the same, of the eco, in the week or so preceding the call on the 16th July. Thinking, I should call, just to see what they found.

What the cardiologist who read the film found was a 5 cm aneurysm on my ascending aorta. & as the medical assistant & MD pointed out, I would need an angiogram, for confirmation & determination of need for surgery... & I scheduled that, to be read by same cardiologist as the eco, for the coming Thursday. The MD also reminded: any chest pains, get to an ER.

I ended up in the ER that nite.

After a trek thru surgical hell -- the ER doc, the radiologist on site (who read an angiogram administered in my time in Columbia St. Mary's ER) believed the aneurysm needs immediate surgery; the surgeon covering for the one mentioned in my charts by my family practice MD advised, "You look good, you don't need to be in surgery" (mostly, he didn't want to work on the weekend... such a loverboy) -- I ended up at a teaching hospital -- & discharged the next day.

My care remained fast-tracked, though, thru the efforts of my mother (an RN of thirty-plus years).

Had surgery on the 22nd, the day when I would have had the angiogram, then was in ICU for two days, & recovery for three, three-&-an-half more. Had most of my family in the area, an aunt & uncle, an aunt & her Twilite-loving daughter (for whom I had procured four tickets for opening nite of Eclipse (IMAX release), mother & stepfather, father (who bailed on a chance to go to Italy for the nuptials of his girlfriend's daughter... of course, my father really didn't want to go in the first place, too cheap to buy a plane fare, too incurious to want to visit Italy).

I am doing well.

Of course, the dame I had just started seeing -- distinct from the aforementioned dame, & no, I am not two-timing either -- & actually had taken a liking to, didn't show. But that tale of woebegone romance for another time.

I am just happy to be alive.