Righto, well I was pondering whether to write this or not, then a chance visit last night from a mate hardened my resolve, so here we go.
Some of you will have noticed I’ve been particularly prolific and irritating this week, posting here there and everywhere and looking for trouble wherever I can find it. Truth is, extreme boredom is the root cause, too much time on my hands. Why? Because I’ve was sitting in a hospital bed for five days while the quacks attempted to get to the bottom of the “hypertensive crisis” and a persistent two day long migraine.
A hypertensive crisis is when your blood pressure suddenly goes above 180/120. Mine was 215/135. Not good. When I reported this and the untreatable migraine to the nurse at our doctor’s surgery, I was immediately trucked off to the ED due to the high risk of imminent stroke.
Now in our family, several hereditary conditions or risks exist on both maternal and paternal sides, as evidenced by me, my sister, aunts, uncles and my cousins who for the most part have developed one or more of the conditions exhibited by our parents and grandparents. Elevated blood pressure (but not that high), migraine, angina, asthma, brain tumours and kidney cancer. Luckily for me I’ve not had the brain tumour or angina yet, but all the others? I must tick the “yes” box on the medical forms. Annoying, but just the way it is.
Long story short, the migraine was resolved by lots of drugs (triptans and opiates) which gave me an unexpected trip to the outer reaches of the solar system. The blood pressure was attacked by clever things that make your veins dilate. Unfortunately, the blood pressure drugs didn’t work for a few days while they experimented with the types & dose, and I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere in case I had a stroke, their primary concern. Then as if by magic, down it came over three days, and now its 135/85, close to its normal level. I shudder to think what could have happened if I hadn’t taken my blood pressure when I did, suspicious that there may be a link to the migraine problems I have suffered the last 10 years since I had a radical nephrectomy in 2009.
I had the opportunity to discuss high blood pressure with both doctors and nurses in the hospital. One nurse gave me a crystal clear understanding of the dangers of high blood pressure. She described to me the level of lifelong care required for a number of patients she has dealt with who have suffered debilitating stroke. She used the phrase “silent killer” several times in reference to how in almost all cases she has come across, neither the patient nor the immediate family had any idea of the underlying condition of dangerously high blood pressure.
Despite my trials and tribulations with cancer I have always had a somewhat fatalistic attitude towards health, which is daft really. I am a very active and fun loving bloke who probably won’t ever adhere strictly to doctors orders. But I do listen and take what they have to say on board, and there’s always been a persistent guilty conscience voice in the back of my mind telling me to look after myself. That’s why I own a decent quality blood pressure monitor, for example. It’s not like I don’t know the state of my health because for work and insurance purposes I must have an annual medical, which covers most of the common threat factors including having a finger shoved up my rear end (and a CT scan).
I knock about with a range of different people from well-heeled professionals to rough and ready shepherds, and pretty much most good sorts in between. There is one common thread that is shared by many of these guys, and that is they live life hard, fast and with both eyes firmly pointing straight ahead. Not exactly Lemmy hard and fast, but they’re certainly not the kind of guys to go tootling off to the GP every time they have a health grumble.
My mate who visited me last night was glad I was home and feeling much better, probably because I have the keys to his anticipated Roar hunting in April! But in conversation with him it struck me how he typified the classic Kiwi hardcase bloke who simply will not listen to his symptoms and dreads the idea of going to the doctor, adopting the “prefer not to know” mentality. He is the youngest of a large family and he has already lost his father and one elder brother, who both died young, to illnesses that if treated early would have prevented their passing. His dogged refusal yesterday to even contemplate going for a thorough medical annoyed me, and I told him so. He’s 47, married to a gorgeous wife with 4 kids, and the last time he can remember going to a GP was when he did his pilot’s license at the age of 22. (ED visits for stitches and broken bones don’t count.)
While I was in hospital last week I had a very revealing conversation with my two boys (12 and 13) , and separately my wife. My boys made it very clear to me that if I was to kark it from not looking after myself properly, they would be seriously cross. Like really, really disappointed in me. My youngest boy has a way with words that gave me such a fright that I cried. Which was interesting for us all as the only time he’s ever seen me cry before was when his grandma died in July last. My wife is a strong and stoic woman, just like her late mother, but I could see this event had shaken her, as the fear of suddenly having a husband unable to perform even the most rudimentary self-care frightened her half to death.
So why am I telling you all this?
Go and see your doctor. Don’t be a hard nosed selfish cockhead and refuse the chance for the preventive care that is your right. Consider how your nearest and dearest feel about you, and their investment in your continued good health. Consider the impact that a preventable health emergency would have on them, potentially for the rest of their lives as well as yours. Scared of what the medical outcome might be? Well that will be fark all compared to how you will be feeling if you’re incoherent, dribbling and unable to wipe your arse.
Sorry for the confessional and to be so blunt, but I can see that the next mate who defends the indefensible and walks off into the night pretending that they’re made of titanium and carbon fibre, he’s going to get a serious rocket up the rear end. I think we all know that this culture of “prefer not to know” is perhaps far more prevalent than people let on, and only by putting yourselves in the shoes of those around you is it really possible to understand how scary that is for them...
Women have pap smears and breast scans as a matter of routine. What do us blokes have? Only what we allow ourselves, and often times that’s nowhere near enough. High blood pressure is very common, easily treated, and a potential death sentence. Or much, much worse.
Some of you will have noticed I’ve been particularly prolific and irritating this week, posting here there and everywhere and looking for trouble wherever I can find it. Truth is, extreme boredom is the root cause, too much time on my hands. Why? Because I’ve was sitting in a hospital bed for five days while the quacks attempted to get to the bottom of the “hypertensive crisis” and a persistent two day long migraine.
A hypertensive crisis is when your blood pressure suddenly goes above 180/120. Mine was 215/135. Not good. When I reported this and the untreatable migraine to the nurse at our doctor’s surgery, I was immediately trucked off to the ED due to the high risk of imminent stroke.
Now in our family, several hereditary conditions or risks exist on both maternal and paternal sides, as evidenced by me, my sister, aunts, uncles and my cousins who for the most part have developed one or more of the conditions exhibited by our parents and grandparents. Elevated blood pressure (but not that high), migraine, angina, asthma, brain tumours and kidney cancer. Luckily for me I’ve not had the brain tumour or angina yet, but all the others? I must tick the “yes” box on the medical forms. Annoying, but just the way it is.
Long story short, the migraine was resolved by lots of drugs (triptans and opiates) which gave me an unexpected trip to the outer reaches of the solar system. The blood pressure was attacked by clever things that make your veins dilate. Unfortunately, the blood pressure drugs didn’t work for a few days while they experimented with the types & dose, and I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere in case I had a stroke, their primary concern. Then as if by magic, down it came over three days, and now its 135/85, close to its normal level. I shudder to think what could have happened if I hadn’t taken my blood pressure when I did, suspicious that there may be a link to the migraine problems I have suffered the last 10 years since I had a radical nephrectomy in 2009.
I had the opportunity to discuss high blood pressure with both doctors and nurses in the hospital. One nurse gave me a crystal clear understanding of the dangers of high blood pressure. She described to me the level of lifelong care required for a number of patients she has dealt with who have suffered debilitating stroke. She used the phrase “silent killer” several times in reference to how in almost all cases she has come across, neither the patient nor the immediate family had any idea of the underlying condition of dangerously high blood pressure.
Despite my trials and tribulations with cancer I have always had a somewhat fatalistic attitude towards health, which is daft really. I am a very active and fun loving bloke who probably won’t ever adhere strictly to doctors orders. But I do listen and take what they have to say on board, and there’s always been a persistent guilty conscience voice in the back of my mind telling me to look after myself. That’s why I own a decent quality blood pressure monitor, for example. It’s not like I don’t know the state of my health because for work and insurance purposes I must have an annual medical, which covers most of the common threat factors including having a finger shoved up my rear end (and a CT scan).
I knock about with a range of different people from well-heeled professionals to rough and ready shepherds, and pretty much most good sorts in between. There is one common thread that is shared by many of these guys, and that is they live life hard, fast and with both eyes firmly pointing straight ahead. Not exactly Lemmy hard and fast, but they’re certainly not the kind of guys to go tootling off to the GP every time they have a health grumble.
My mate who visited me last night was glad I was home and feeling much better, probably because I have the keys to his anticipated Roar hunting in April! But in conversation with him it struck me how he typified the classic Kiwi hardcase bloke who simply will not listen to his symptoms and dreads the idea of going to the doctor, adopting the “prefer not to know” mentality. He is the youngest of a large family and he has already lost his father and one elder brother, who both died young, to illnesses that if treated early would have prevented their passing. His dogged refusal yesterday to even contemplate going for a thorough medical annoyed me, and I told him so. He’s 47, married to a gorgeous wife with 4 kids, and the last time he can remember going to a GP was when he did his pilot’s license at the age of 22. (ED visits for stitches and broken bones don’t count.)
While I was in hospital last week I had a very revealing conversation with my two boys (12 and 13) , and separately my wife. My boys made it very clear to me that if I was to kark it from not looking after myself properly, they would be seriously cross. Like really, really disappointed in me. My youngest boy has a way with words that gave me such a fright that I cried. Which was interesting for us all as the only time he’s ever seen me cry before was when his grandma died in July last. My wife is a strong and stoic woman, just like her late mother, but I could see this event had shaken her, as the fear of suddenly having a husband unable to perform even the most rudimentary self-care frightened her half to death.
So why am I telling you all this?
Go and see your doctor. Don’t be a hard nosed selfish cockhead and refuse the chance for the preventive care that is your right. Consider how your nearest and dearest feel about you, and their investment in your continued good health. Consider the impact that a preventable health emergency would have on them, potentially for the rest of their lives as well as yours. Scared of what the medical outcome might be? Well that will be fark all compared to how you will be feeling if you’re incoherent, dribbling and unable to wipe your arse.
Sorry for the confessional and to be so blunt, but I can see that the next mate who defends the indefensible and walks off into the night pretending that they’re made of titanium and carbon fibre, he’s going to get a serious rocket up the rear end. I think we all know that this culture of “prefer not to know” is perhaps far more prevalent than people let on, and only by putting yourselves in the shoes of those around you is it really possible to understand how scary that is for them...
Women have pap smears and breast scans as a matter of routine. What do us blokes have? Only what we allow ourselves, and often times that’s nowhere near enough. High blood pressure is very common, easily treated, and a potential death sentence. Or much, much worse.
and having my BP taken after bloods. Should of been done first (different nurse mix up on what I was there for).
