4.13.25
My goodness me! Once again, I find myself wondering how on earth we can be in the middle of April when it seems as if the year has barely begun! Yikes! If the remainder of the year passes as quickly, I will be making Christmas cakes before I know it! In all seriousness, time does seem to be passing in great dollops and that is rather alarming. There is so much to do! Maybe a lot of how I feel this morning is due to finally getting some answers on my dicky heart situation and the frustration that I want it fixed and for me to be back to normal now! Not in a few months’ time!
I have been overwhelmed with all the good thoughts and well wishes that have come flooding my way over the past fortnight. That alone made my heart feel better. So, this morning, I thought I should give an update to let everyone know how things are progressing.
Never having been one who has had to resort to taking medication on a regular basis – well other than for several years after my cancer surgery – the taking of a daily dose of medicine is, shall we say, hard to swallow! After seeing the cardiac electrophysiologist specialist a fortnight ago, his first line of attack on solving my arrythmia was to put me on two of the more high-powered heart medications. One is a calcium channel blocker and the other acts on the “gates” you might say, that allow sodium and potassium to move into and out of a heart’s cell. When he mentioned these as an aid to my problem, my first reaction was how they would affect my blood pressure. You see, from teaching about the working of the heart and the pharmacology associated with various heart ailments to my EMT pals, I have a pretty fair understanding of the actions of these medications work.
One of the medications, the calcium channel blocker, affects the way your heart beats as well as works to lower the burden on the heart achieving the latter in part by causing blood vessels to relax. Now that is a good thing as a rule because most people suffering from the condition I have, tend to have high blood pressure – hypertension. I on the other hand am at the other end of the spectrum and have inherently low blood pressure – hypotension. When I questioned the doctor about my concern the medication might lower my blood pressure even more, he blithely remarked that I was not to worry, it would not affect my blood pressure at all! Well, he is the doctor I thought!
A little over a week ago I started the medication, thrilled when a mere day later I noticed a significant change in my arrythmia, my funny little beats were gone! Ecstatic that the medications were doing their job thus hopefully saving me from having any sort of surgical intervention, I was optimistic I would be back running on all cylinders in no time. This however I soon learned may take more time than the doctor had implied.
As elated as I was to have my ticker back to beating nice and normally, my fears of the medication affecting my blood pressure came to fruition. Any type of physical activity, even standing at the kitchen sink doing dishes, made my blood pressure suddenly drop precipitously. Feeding the milk cows had me sitting down on the hay trailer halfway through the chore. Darrell kept an eagle eye on me as he knew as soon as I turned white as a sheet, he needed to make me stop what I was doing and sit down. The cure was turning out to be worse than the disease!
Contacting the physician’s office, he encouraged me to give the medication few more days trial to see if my body would adjust. However, a couple of days later when out of the blue my blood pressure sank to 73/51 – I have no idea how I didn’t pass out! – I took a picture of the monitor reading and sent it to the specialist, voicing my concern. This surely should prove the medication was indeed affecting my blood pressure in a negative way and it was not my imagination! He immediately sent a new prescription to the chemist shop, lowering the dosage of both medications in the hope that would solve the issue. I am only a couple of days into the new dosage regime and needless to say, am keeping a close eye on how I feel.
With luck my body will adjust, and my energy will increase to normal levels. The thought of joining the ranks of others on daily medication regimes does rankle a wee bit but will be a small price to pay for a happy heart!
