Tag: Health

The waiting “game” …

Back at work waiting for the call from the Cardiologist.

I get 3 or 4 random calls between Thursday and Friday! I never get random calls!

I have to leave meetings just in case it’s … the call!

To say I was a little on edge would be putting it mildly.

Eventually the call came mid afternoon Friday.

“Yes, the recommendation is open heart surgery.”

“I have a good surgeon for you, probably the best in Perth. He does the heart transplants at Fiona Stanley Hospital!”

Me: Uh-huh

“You have an appointment with him on Monday!”

OK!

Friday, July 6

The Cardiologist (2)

We had an appointment with the Cardiologist later that day.

It’s funny how quickly things move along. I’d gone from being okay to requiring heart surgery.

The Cardiologist went over the findings and talked about stents versus open heart surgery. He didn’t need to convince me in favour of open heart surgery.

While stents have their place, surgery seems to be a more “permanent” solution and I was happy to go down that path.

He would get opinions from colleagues and then advise me of his full recommendation.

“I’ll be in touch in two days.”

July 4 (evening)

Angie-O-Gram Day (2)

*”And so here I am, waiting in the lobby, sweating bullets in this stupid old suit …” to have this angiogram done.

They wheel me in, slip the needle into my wrist to send the dye through to the heart. The specialist sees my tattoo and comments about running marathons.

“Quite a few ultra runners have heart disease issues.”

Nice start!

I’m lying on the gurney as he starts sending the dye through.

“Hmmm, we have a major, a serious and a minor blockage.” Or something to that effect.

He walks me through what he sees and, really, for the first time, I know I have some shit to deal with.

Try as I may, I can’t stop the tear running down my face.

Fuck!

July 4

*”I don’t want to be alone” – Billy Joel

Angie-O-Gram Day (1)

A short preface to the actual test.

A few years ago (quite a few now, I guess) a visit to the doc was uneventful.

You’d turn up complaining of something and the doc would “umm” and “ahh” and then give you a prescription for aspirin or something and send you on your way.

Basically there was nothing wrong with you that an aspirin and a good lie down, or a good day at work, wouldn’t fix.

99.9% of the time you were fine.

A visit to the doc was just another thing you did.

Certainly not something to be concerned about.

Stressed? Not me!

Stress away!

I have done so many of these.

The exercise puts stress on the heart by increasing the speed and incline every 3 minutes. They also take your blood pressure and ask if you’re feeling any discomfort. Sounds easy but the incline gets you.

Blood pressure is good. 

No discomfort.

The test continues uneventfully and I step off. 

Once again I have bettered the previous test without any discomfort. Which is weird because the last few casual runs have always caused discomfort.

But the stress test doesn’t lie!

This is, surely, all a storm in a teacup!

June 29.

The Beginning

June 3 Albany, Western Australia. Elleker half marathon.

I wasn’t ready for this. I hadn’t really prepared at all. And you just don’t decide to run a half marathon! But I’d paid my fee and it gave me an excuse to see my 90 year old dad.

We arrived late. I didn’t have a great warm up. We headed off for the 21.1km. But even without proper preparation it was a good run on a beautiful winter’s day. No personal best but also nothing that indicated what was about to come.

My wife came second in her event, winning fifty dollars!

The Blood Sugars

poached eggsTried a little experiment yesterday.

Poached eggs on sourdough to see if the toast (being processed carbs) might affect my blood sugars.

Well, of course they will, but I’m wondering if the body can cope and have competently dealt with the sugar by the two hour mark. Being just two small slices I was wondering of this is something I can enjoy without too much of an effect.

As an HbA1c test averages out how much sugars you’ve had in your blood for the previous 3 months, this will add to that measure.

And yes, two hours later my blood sugar reading is still 8.0 mmol/L!

According to Diabetes UK, it needs to be below 7.8 mmol/L:

Screen Shot 2018-09-17 at 14.37.56

So this kinda confirms the Type 2 diabetes status, but we’re working on it being lower than that.

As per my previous post, we may be able to reverse this but not cure it. That’s fine, it simply means I need to remove ALL processed carbs from my diet ALL the time.

I can live with that! (pun not intended!)