| I know I mentioned it in the previous post but for those who might be wondering or concerned about their own health issues I thought it might be helpful if I elaborated on my primary ailment.
 I have Congestive Heart Failure (CHF). I was diagnosed with this condition May 16, 2005. I remember the date clearly because that is the day I almost died. I was told that I developed this condition from having untreated hypertension (high blood pressure). I accepted this as fact as all the literature and internet searches bear this out. I have no argument with any of it.
However, when I first first diagnosed with high blood pressure I was assigned to a doctor who made me wait for hours in spite of scheduled appointments, spent two minutes in the office only partially with me and threw pills at me further in spite of me telling him “Yes, I am taking them as prescribed.” and “They aren’t working.” This went on until I finally gave up on him ever listening. A second doctor was assigned who did much the same thing. She did spend more time in the exam room while I was in there but the time spent there was of as little quality as the first doctor’s care. She spent her time telling me how gross I was and how, of course, I’m not taking my meds properly in spite of my protests. I’m not a doctor or any other kind of medical professional but I did realize that high blood pressure wasn’t something to fool around with. However, I would come out of the visits with the doctors with higher blood pressure than I had going in.
I decided to give up on the doctors in this area figuring they were all going to be the same even though I knew high blood pressure wasn’t something to fool around with. My hope was that if I changed my diet and did all the right things it would slowly come down on its own. It wasn’t that high at that time, either… typically around 145/98 except after a visit to the doctor when it would go as high as 170/120. Not good, huh?
All this was decided sometime in the year 2003. For the next two years, I tried very hard to do what I ought to be doing to manage my condition. Apparently it wasn’t enough. I became increasingly more fatigued doing the simplest of tasks. My husband urged me to go to the doctor because he could see the changes in me. I continually asked why I should go to a doctor just to have a bunch of pills shoved at me that weren’t going to do any good and he would drop it.
We bought a house in October of 2004. The move exhausted me in ways I could never have imagined. The changes my husband had seen me undergo gradually accelerated to a much faster pace after that move. With the holidays, worry over my son (stationed in Iraq), trying to unpack and get some kind of order to our new home, and run my business I was always exhausted. Our sex life suffered, the grandchildren suffered, everybody suffered and I was slowly killing myself because I refused to see a doctor.
The catylist that sent me to the emergency room.
May 2005: I was talking to one of my friends whose computer had died… completely irrevocably, not to be resuscitated dead. She was having financial difficulties and couldn’t afford a new one. A computer or some form is a necessity to her. She is a writer and a damn good one. I knew I had all kinds of spare parts lying around here and while it wouldn’t be a top of the line model straight off the assembly line, I could build it with a decent video card, a couple of now small but adequate hard drives, and a decent speed CPU. May 15th I started building it. I was increasingly short of breath doing the simplest of tasks, none of which were physically demanding.
My husband got a little short tempered with me because I ferquently stopped what I was doing just to catch my breath. Having had a cold for several days, my initial thought was that I had contracted pneumonia, although I didn’t say anything to my husband about it. I didn’t want to get into another debate about going to see any more quack doctors.
The morning of May 16 I could no longer ignore it. I woke up breathless and I couldn’t take a step without losing my breath. I tried very hard to get everything prepared for my husband who would be going to work soon and knew as soon as he left I would be going to the doctor whether I wanted to or not. I was positive I had pneumonia. My husband didn’t go to work. Instead I had to wake him up to ask him to take me to the doctor because I couldn’t do anything. To move an inch was more than I could breath to accomplish. It was obvious that I was completely incapacitated by that time. He was grumbling because I never listened to him and went to see the doctors before when he begged me to do so. I was crying and telling him that he was right all along and I was so sorry I didn’t listen to him… which only worsened the discomfort. I don’t think either one of us was prepared for what the doctors would tell him later.
He took me to the emergency room of Baptist Hospital and stuck me in a wheel chair. I felt very silly being in a wheel chair and said so. He replied that if I couldn’t walk without losing my breath completely that’s where I needed to be. I didn’t argue. I didn’t have the breath to argue but I did feel very silly. The waiting process was fairly long but considering it doubles as an outpatient clinic in spite of being an emergency that was to be expected. I felt like a sham being there for what I thought was pneumonia which I felt could have been handled through an outpatient clinic.
By the time I was in an exam room I couldn’t move a finger without losing my breath. At some point I lost coherent thought. I don’t remember any of the fine details that happened. My husband filled those in later. The last memory I have of anything that transpired was looking up at one of the monitors they had hooked to me was my blood pressure was 203/145. I remember being wheeled about on a bed for a lot of tests but what the tests were each time and what order I did them I couldn’t tell you. I remember the oxygen and the thing they stick on your finger that’s hooked to the big machine that tells you what your heart rate and blood pressure are. Sometime during all this a doctor told my husband that another 24 hours he wouldn’t have been bringing me to the emergency room but an ambulance would have been taking me to the morgue.
They did get me stabilized while I was in the emergency room. I began to feel a bit better from the oxygen and the doctors came to talk to me. They then told me I had congestive heart failure and that I would be in the hospital for awhile so they could run more tests and figure out what kind of treatment I needed to manage my condition. During this time I also saw a dietician and several other specialists to help me with the lifestyle changes I needed to make to continue to live.
Now, ten months later I feel better. I can honestly say that. I don’t lose my breath at the drop of a hat. I’m very grateful for that. But…
I don’t feel better enough. I have some very bad days sometimes. I also have some other female problems that have continually gotten worse over the last ten months. If I exercise on my bike, I’m exhausted and useless for the rest of the day afterwards. My mental functions are nowhere near as sharp as they used to be. I lack concentration and focus and it’s a struggle to get anything mentally challenging done. I don’t do graphics any more than what is necessary for my work. I have lost my creativity and drive to do much more than try to survive.
I’ve done everything that I was told would be required if I wanted to get better. While it has helped, I feel like there is still something wrong somewhere that is keeping these things from helping as much as they should be.
I’m afraid to say anything to the doctors because if I say something and they don’t want to hear it, I might wind up back where I was in May 2005.
I’m becoming increasingly frustrated that nothing seems to work as well as it should be and has had no lasting effects on the quality of my life. I’m getting depressed over the whole thing. So depressed that I wonder if trying to stay alive is the best thing. Perhaps I should just accept this is the beginning of the end, get my affairs in order, and wait for it to come.
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