Throwback Thursday from August 2015 – “A Man’s Gotta Do What A Man’s Gotta Do”

Throwback Thursday from August 2015 

A Man’s Gotta Do What A Man’s Gotta Do

THIS MORNING WAS DIFFICULT.

I got up at my usual time – 7 AM-ish and got my act together so I could leave the house without either scaring the neighbors or getting my butt arrested. Up to that point the morning was going along uneventfully.

My wife, the lovely and early rising today, Dawn, was already up and more or less “at ‘em.” She had an 8:30 appointment and set the alarm for some ungodly hour to ensure that she would not be late. I applaud her for that.

It was at this point that things began to go downhill like a Chevy with a faulty parking brake in San Francisco. I had my own appointment to see my Doctor at 11:20 AM.

11:20? 11:bleeping 20? What moron scheduled an appointment for that late in the day? Oh. Never mind. My bad.

The main reason I see this Doctor at all is because I have “Blood Pressure Issues.” That means that, untreated, my blood pressure tends to creep up to rival that of a charging Cape Buffalo. After that my head would explode, I would spontaneously combust and I would hit the ground like an overcooked baked potato.

By scheduling an appointment for that late in the morning it meant one very significant and overriding thing: I wouldn’t be able to have my morning coffee until after the appointment.

Dear God! Whatever will I do? Wherever will I go?

If I go ahead and drop by St. Arbucks for my morning coffee my blood pressure will spike like Vlad The Impaler on a bad day. I had doomed myself to a morning without my coffee. Sheesh!

My solution to this self-inflicted wound was to nurse along a cup of Decaf and hope that it wouldn’t rat on me when they wrapped that cuff on my arm.

I know what you are thinking –“Decaf?” That is just like kissing your sister. It is technically a kiss, but it’s not the same. It’s not like the Real Thing.

So, bowing my head in shame, I ordered the coffee that isn’t coffee and I skulked to my chair in the corner. The barista got a bit teary, The Usual Suspects – The Brotherhood of the Cup, stared and whispered to each other. Even the flies moved to the far side of the store, ashamed to be seen near me.

I sat there waiting for it to be time to leave. I sipped at the dark liquid, wondering what do they do to make it taste like that – and why, for Heaven’s sake. Why?

Deep in my heart I knew that I had a good reason for doing what I was doing. It was my health, my very life, which was in the balance. With my meds I had the blood pressure of an adult human male of my age. Without my meds no one within splatter range was safe. I was like a human paint ball. I didn’t want to mislead the Doctor with a BP reading that would be artificially goosed up by my cup of real coffee.

Some days you just have to take one for the team. Some days you have to lean in to the fastball.  If I had to pretend that the stuff in my cup was really coffee I would do it. I would hope that the stress of making this sacrifice would not, in itself, raise my blood pressure, but I would do it.

I had to think of my family, man!

I want them to be proud of me. I want them to see me happy. I want them to see me above ground.

Life In An Orange Plastic Bottle

I KNOW THAT THERE IS NOT A LOT I CAN DO ABOUT IT, but I get really tired of taking my daily fistful of meds. Counting Vitamins, and other Supplements I down eight pills with my morning coffee, three with lunch, and six more with dinner. I feel like I am a bulwark of the American Pharmaceutical Industry.

Don’t get me wrong – I know that there are a multitude of people who have to ingest more medications than I do, but I can only live within my own frame of reference. I understand that all these meds that I take serve a purpose – two purposes actually – 1. To keep me from having a neurological blowout at freeway speeds, and 2. To keep my local Pharmacist employed. Both are noble causes indeed.

Medical Equipment To You, Gizmos To Me

DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS where the Bluebonnets are blooming and some people say that I’m “Blooming” too.

We are down in Texas visiting with family and taking care of business. It is nice that we can stay with Dawn’s mother in the Family home. Being 97 years old makes it pretty obvious that there are medical issues. With medical issues come all sorts of nifty medical Gizmos. Her Home Healthcare people don’t like that I refer to their devices as Gizmos, but that’s what they are – high tech, clever, and wonderful Gizmos. I guess that is why I am not their favorite person.

Many of these things have been around in one form or another for a long time, but they have been updated and are beginning to have similarities to the things used by the doctors on Star Trek.

Here We Go Again

 

WELCOME TO THE NEW YEAR. We made it. We have survived 2017 – a year filled with many good and wonderful things and a few that should make us all ashamed.

Now that we are alive and over the hump of the Holiday Season I hope that we are all determined to make this year one to remember with smiles and not cringes. That’s my hope anyway. I’m going to try to do my part.

In Like Flynn

 

CAFFEINE. NO CAFFEINE. Most days it really doesn’t matter all that much. Today it matters.

I’m sitting here sipping on a cup of decaf coffee – by choice. In a few hours I will be going into my Cardiologist’s office for a Blood Pressure check and a blood draw. A load of caffeine won’t help my BP reading and the free donut I was just offered won’t look pretty on the analysis of my Type “O” Negative.

Such fun.

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

I HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN A LONG and arduous search lately. I’ve been looking for a new Doctor, your basic G.P. to keep me ticking – you know – a Witch Doctor.

The Doctor I had been seeing ever since I came to Terre Haute (That’s French for “Turn your head and cough.”) has decided to retire. I take no credit or blame in his decision making process. He retired and it turned into a case of finding a replacement before my prescriptions expired.

Let me tell you – it is not as easy a task as one would expect. There aren’t that many doctors in town, who have actual degrees in Medicine, who are anxious to take on 71 year old Geezers on Medicare. It seems we have a nasty habit of dying and I hear that means they have a whole new set of paperwork to fill out.