Today was the day of my annual heart check-up and also my annual diabetes check-up. The heart check-ups started at three months then six months and this was my first in a year. It's just over three years since my heart attack due to my heart muscle contracting an unknown virus and I have been officially signed off by my cardiologist. My heart muscle is nearly back to its normal size having at one point resembled a flat football and the registrar said that they don't expect to see me again unless I have problems in the future - hurrah!
It's an enormous psychological weight lifted (bad English?), to go from being told I had an illness for which there was no apparent identifiable cause and no chance of a cure to being told I'm almost as well as anybody of my age could be expected is pretty amazing. One of my arteries is slightly damaged so I will have to continue taking the tablets and I do have a little memory loss sometimes, apparently this was due to a brief lack of oxygen to my brain when I stopped breathing back in November 2003 - but that aside I'm good to go.
This evening was my diabetes test and my blood sugar level is down, I've lost weight, kidney function is good - only problem is my cholesterol has crept above 4.5 which is not good so I will have to remember to take the statin tablets that I stopped taking because they made me ill and then forgot to take their replacements (aren't men useless patients).
6 comments:
Wonderful. Good for you. Good for your loved ones too.
That is good news Paul.
Excellent news, Paul. I'm glad to hear it.
Thanks Guy and Gals!
It's excellent news I feel so relieved.
And I am happy to read that news too...My next check up is January 18th, the best I manage to get is 3-4 months but I now go and see my own Dr between Consultant appointments. So I have a blood test planned on January 2nd. The result will be back by January 5th so my Dr will tell me the good or bad news on that day and give me a blood pressure and urine test but if the bloods come back oke, the other two usually are fine.
I am on one blood pressure tablet for now. The other drugs did save me but I paid for their use with so much weight gain snd other symptoms and though short sighted I still think their use is why I now suffer with lots of floaters, a sunny day or a bright sky really is a problem trying to forget that they are there.
I hope one day they'll improve. I think they have changed since coming off the drugs. On the other hand as I had thick sticky blood originally I do wonder if unbeknown to me as it damaged the kidneys it was probably trying to squeeze through very small veins in the eye so perhaps that caused the problem.
What can go wrong?
Like you I think I caught a virus of some kind through working at the Hospital Radio Station and going around the wards collecting reequests.
Later on a few years down the line my Auntie became seriously ill with a liver problem and is it a coincidence that she was doing voluntary work at...the same hospital? Or do we try to look for a connection when there isn't any?
Anyhow, great news, long may your recovery continue...
Thank you one and all for the comments.
Gildy, I hope everything goes okay in early January. With regards to you and your Auntie I don't believe in coincidence - I tend to use the American system of reasonable doubt if two people experience an illness and they worked in the same hospital then I would think that the hospital was the common factor.
Cleanliness in hospitals can never be the same as in your home simply because of the throughput of people - but the public could be a lot more responsible by washing their hands and staying away if ill themselves. Prevention is better than cure.
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