|
Best of times/ Worst of times 15 y
I experience a new and more horrible type of blood pressure fluctuation.
(This is a continuing saga and I’m not good at summarizing. Start here at your peril.)
This was a bad week for me. Or a good week. Depends on how you look at it.
I had an event on Wednesday night, Feb. 10th. That was good in a way because it allowed me to get the 24 hour urine sample with an episode in it. Now there’s some hope that will show something that the doctor can use to diagnose me. On the other hand, the event started at around 8 pm so the urine collection didn’t finish until 8 pm Thursday night. Okay. But then I had my blood didn’t get drawn until over 36 hours after the o ... read more No Matter Where You Go, There You Are 15 y
Still uncertain about whether I have an adrenal tumor or not.
(This is a continuing saga and I’m not good at writing recaps. Start here at your peril.)
When you think about it, this hypertension stuff is not as well understood as doctors make it out to be. At my visit to Dr. S2 on Thursday, he pointed out the four types of medication currently available to treat it. Lisinopril, what I am on now, is an ACE inhibitor. Diovan is an ARB. Tekturna is a Kallifrern (I couldn’t read his writing on these two). And Coreg is a beta blocker. So four different types of medicine for one symptom. To me that means there are probably at least four differe ... read more It's not dead yet, Jim. 15 y
Like a movie monster, I find my hypertension cannot be killed.
(This is a continuing saga and I’m not good at writing recaps. Start here at your peril.)
Call me naïve. Call me an optimist (although that is not a term often applied to me). Call me a wishful thinker. Call me what you will, but I really thought my BP spikes were gone for good. I haven’t had one in three weeks where before they’d been spaced no more than three days apart. Fourteen days was surely enough to know I was “cured,” at least as long as I was taking the lisinopril.
During this period of calm, my life has returned to normal. I’m back to working regular hours. Back t ... read more It's Not a Tumor 15 y
I find out I do not have a tumor and my symptoms disappear probably due to lisinopril.
(This is a continuing saga and I’m not good at writing recaps. Start here at your peril.)
Got the urine analysis results back from the doctor. Normal.
Normal? I have to admit, that was a bit of a shock. I sent him a quick email, “Does that mean I don’t have an adrenal tumor?” Long hours later, “You do not have a tumor.” My next doctor’s appointment is in two weeks. In the meantime…
Does that really mean my BP spikes are psychosomatic?
I have to admit that even though I said I thought they were psychosomatic and that I believed that because that is the only way to get ri ... read more The Waiting Game is Not a Fun Game 15 y
Waiting for tests results could give you hypertension
(This is a continuing saga and I’m not good at writing recaps. Start here at your peril)
It’s Thursday morning. I turned my 24-hour urine sample in last Friday morning. Why does it take so long to get the results? I’ve been through this before only to find there was a problem with the sample (never got a decent explanation for that). I hope that does not happen this time. Waiting is hard. Waiting is uncertainty. Waiting is fear.
What am I afraid of? All possible results.
If the urinalysis shows excess adrenal hormones, does that really mean I have a tumor? Is it possible for the p ... read more Is It In My Adrenal Gland or In My Head? 15 y
The results of the CT scan come back, still waiting on urinalysis, and I decide the whole thing is in my head. Wishful thinking is what it is all about.
(This is a continuing saga and I’m not good at writing recaps. Start here at your peril)
It’s weird but I was actually happy about having an adrenal gland tumor. People like certainty, even an unpleasant certainty, better than uncertainty and I am no exception. It gave me something to label my condition. And exploring the internet for symptoms, treatments and outputs gave me something to do. It made me feel like I had some control over what happened to me, even though that control was only in the smallest way.
Dr. S2 had wanted me to have the CT scan the next day but instead I did th ... read more New Doctor, New Diagnosis 15 y
I finally get what sounds like a solid diagnosis! Tumor of the adrenal medulla.
(This is a continuing saga and I’m not good at writing recaps. Start here at your peril)
It was the week before Christmas when I turned in my second 24-hour urine sample. You know what that means, no results until after the holiday. In the meantime my BP went up and down and down and up, but not as wildly as before. And the intervals between spikes were longer. The diovan was working, just not working that well.
The Monday after Christmas, I got a call from my doctor. Urine results were negative. Nothing wrong with my kidneys. Humm. One good thing about this is that I am learning wha ... read more Don't Call Me, I'll Call You 15 y
The doctor proposes that I have a problem with my kidneys but it proves difficult to get the test results back.
(This is a continuing saga and I’m not good at writing recaps. Start here at your peril)
That night I had another episode, but the next night was the worst. My BP went to 210/130. At least by now I knew it wasn’t going to last. Each episode seemed to be about 3 hours. I tried to sleep through it.
The next morning was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I did not like the thought of going through a long holiday weekend with the problems I was having. I took out Dr. W’s business card and stared at the number. I didn’t want to call it. In fact, I decided I didn’t want to call it ever aga ... read more You Can't Feel Your Blood Pressure Just Like You Can't Feel the Temperature 15 y
I go to the cardiologist who does nothing and gives me a lecture on what I can or cannot feel regardless of what I do or do not feel
(This is a continuing saga and I’m not good at writing recaps. Start here at your peril.)
The weekend was horrible. My blood pressure went from high to very high at random intervals, completely unrelated to anything I was doing. I had to have a friend come over to feed the horses. Most of the time I spent lying on the couch, not feeling up to doing anything. Luckily, it is hard to remember things like that.
Monday morning I actually felt okay. I drove myself to the cardiologist and R came with me, I admit I’d have to feel pretty bad to let R drive again. Dr. W was a nice, older guy. ... read more How to See a Cardiologist or Night at the Hospital 15 y
Sometimes you have to spend the night in the hospital just to see a specialist.
(This is a continuing saga and I’m not good at writing recaps. Start here at your peril.)
The ambulance ride to the ER was uneventful. My BP had calmed down and I felt somewhat better. No sirens. No flashing lights. Once we got there things started going bad again. My legs were shaking, my blood pressure went up, the EKG showed lots of PVCs and I felt terrible.
An internist came and introduced himself as (let’s say) Dr. B. He was in charge of my case. He gave me a dose of a new BP medicine, coreg, and told me that I my blood work was negative for signs of a heart attack. But he didn’ ... read more Sometimes a Banana is Just a Banana 15 y
hypertension, periodic, lisinopril, emergency, ER, potassium, banana, PVC
(This is a continuing saga and I’m not good at writing recaps. Start here at your peril.)
The next morning I dutifully called the cardiologist that the ER had referred me to. He was on vacation. Could any of the other cardiologists in his office see me? No, they were all full. The earliest I could be seen was Monday (today was Thursday). Okay, whatever. I made the appointment, a little frustrated that the ER couldn’t recommend I see a cardiologist who was in town if they were going to be so insistent that it be the next day.
I decided to go ahead and call my GP’s office. She could se ... read more A Banana a Day Keeps the Doctor Away 15 y
In the ER where they apparently cure my hypertension with a potassium pill
(This is a continuing saga and I’m not good at recaps. Start here at your own peril.)
We got to the ER, which was empty, and the nurse took me straight to the back. “You have chest pain?”
“No. But my blood pressure is very high and I feel terrible.”
She checked my BP for herself. I don’t know what reading she got but she seemed convinced. They put me on a bed and started an IV, just in case. Pulled some blood samples. Hooked me up to an EKG and oxygen monitor and started giving me oxygen through the two little tubes that so cutely fit into each nostril.
“Try to calm down,” a te ... read more Get Me to the ER on Time 15 y
Sometimes it's not so easy to get to the ER.
(This is a continuing saga and I’m not good at recaps. Start here at your own peril.)
At home, I continued to feel lousy, although I acted normal, feeding the horses, watching TV with my husband, surfing the web a bit. But I could feel my heart trying to escape from my chest, not beating quickly or even that hard but just with the unusual sensation of knowing that it was beating and when. It was going to be hard to sleep again, as it had been the previous night, but I was pretty confident it would eventually calm down. I would make that doctor’s appointment first thing in the morning. D ... read more When blood pressure goes bad 15 y
Onset of atypical or secondary hypertension, an individual's story of denial, dejection and defeat.
Life is an adventure, that’s what I say. It’s not always one you like but you might as well make the best of it. That is why I am treating my journey through the medical system as an adventure. I’m not going to get mad at the dumb things that happen to me. I’m not going to go placing blame. But I am going to point out what has or is happening so that if you are confronted with the same issues, you will know at least that you are not alone.
Is hypertension an adventure? Normally it probably is not. When it first happened to me, I viewed it more like a trip to the grocery store t ... read more |