Sunday, May 31, 2015

Not dead yet.

You’re a fool, you know that.  A fool to think your body would not start to decay. A fool to imagine your heart would kick on unimpeded forever.  

The blind optimism of your mother.  Even she could not hold out against death. 

It’s less than a year since my mother died and already my mortality hits me in the face.  I’m next in line of the generations to die and although in this world of never ending youth, or at least the pursuit of it, I’m not that old yet, I sometimes feel it. 

Science could let me have another baby if I put my mind and money to it, but I’m past the grandiosity or the desperation of such a move, only I resent my blood pressure rising. 

I’m lucky, the doctor told me at my last visit, I have symptoms, light-headedness, pressure in my head.  Some people don't notice until it’s too late and then, kerplunck, they’re dead. 

The doctor made taking Coversyl for hypertension sound as commonplace as taking Panadol for a headache. 

Once you’re past a certain age, once in your fifties, or past sixty, you're likely to need it.  It's like with cars.  They wear out, so do bodies. 

‘If I asked the population of people over fifty to put up their hands, at least fifty per cent or more would be on Coversyl, sooner or later,’ the doctor said.

And so my fate is sealed.  Five milligrams of the tiny blue pill and in the morning my blood pressure on my home machine had dropped to below 120 over 68. 

What’s in this stuff.  

The placebo effect must in there somewhere, too, because as soon as I took that small blue pill I began to feel better.


I'm so persuadable.  Give me a doctor whose argument sounds reasonably sound and I’m off, following his advice, but I won’t be decided completely on this course of action, this reading of past events, until I see my female doctor, the only one I trust, and then hopefully things will settle down.

7 comments:

vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras) said...

Not a subject one should be facetious about but I think you'd be better off consulting a specialist in the reading of future events; this one comes to mind right away--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibyl

Frances said...

I see that Louise Hay, the guru of alternate health, says that hypertension is caused by "longstanding emotional problem not solved."
Hmmm. Could that be apt?

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the club, Elisabeth. Glad your being looked after.
Every word you wrote resonated with me. Being a member of that 'next generation' and especially now that I am on my own I have an unsettling fear of dying alone.
3 very loving children but they all think I'll live forever, so visits are spasmodic.
ALL my previous generations have died of heart disease.
All but one of the last generation died in their 60's.
Feeling vulnerable? just a little (lot).
Karen C

Jim Murdoch said...

So you’re on perindopril, an ACE inhibitor; I’m on bendroflumethiazide, a thiazide diuretic. You get relaxed blood vessels; I get to pee more. Not sure I have much of an opinion one way or the other. I’ve been on the minimum dose for the past twelve years; seems to do the trick. When we moved here the practice we opted to join demanded its new patients have a full physical and that’s when it was discovered I have hypertension. My mum did too. Every year I go and a nurse checks my blood pressure, weighs me and tells me how much I’ve shrunk since the year before; at the rate I’m going I should be about four foot tall by the time I die. It’s not a great hardship. I prefer these visits to the asthma check-ups where they insist on me showing them how to use an inhaler. If I’ve not got the hang of it after forty years there’s no hope for me.

I feel old. Older then fifty-six. I don’t, however, pester my doctor with every minor thing that’s wrong with me; I’d never be away. Most things resolve themselves in time and the things that don’t are the things they’re not very good at diagnosing or treating. So I tolerate the tiredness and the brain fog because there aren’t any miraculous tiny blue (white in my case) pills that just hit the spot. I wish there were. I’d take them as long as the side effects weren’t worse than the illness.

I have a follow-up appointment at the Glasgow Memory Clinic coming up. I swithered about going—I explained to the girl who called that if they’re just going to run the same tests as last time I still won’t be bad enough—but I was finally persuaded and it won’t hurt. I’d like to ask them about ALF (accelerated long-term forgetting) because even though I’m not epileptic it’s a better fit for my symptoms. That is assuming the doctor I’ll get to talk to is anything more than a study monitor.

PhilipH said...

We can't escape death and taxes but now it seems Coversyl is also one of the certainties of life for 50% of people, according to your doc.

Nobody should fear death. It's not like taxes, which can be evaded or avoided, but death just happens. It's the dread of HOW it happens that tends to bother me. How wonderful life would be if we just go to sleep one night and never wake. That's a perfect way to live, and die.

Dying slowly and painfully is so cruel. In these circumstances death becomes hugely welcome, or that's how I see it.

There's a lot of talk about how wonderful it is that we are all living so much LONGER now. But is it that good? Not in my book. We get older and weaker and often suffer more ills in the process.

In mythology a goddess was in love with a mortal man and she asked the gods that her lover was given eternal life. Her wish was granted. She forgot to ask for eternal youth so her handsome young lover became older and older and in the end he yearned for death, but death was denied of course.

Be careful what you wish for, but wishing for a swift and peaceful pain-free death should be OK.

Have a nice life.

Heidrun Khokhar, KleinsteMotte said...

Yes the medical people have made many their converts. But at our hous we use their pill prescriptions only as a temporary measure until we find more healthy alternatives. We are much happier eating spices and other foods that hepl the body work on itself. We are very fond of minerals too. and MSM crystals have changed our health in many ways so hat even our sagging skin has frimed up. and our walkes are a must too.
Sadly there are not great optiond for vision loss yet but I'm hopeful.
Good to know that tiny pill gave you some relief but worry about the long term. We are well over 60 and 70 but no hypertension drugs for us now.

Anne51 said...

I think that's why grandchildren are so good. At sixty three my tenth grandchild is due shortly. each grandchild has a quarter of my DNA, so i am reproduced more than twice. I have significant health problems and take bucket of pills each day. While I am content in each day, I say briing on euthanasia.