MacGyver has my cold now and he didn’t really feel like coming down to Nokomis but we had to, and if you have to be sick all week I guess it doesn’t hurt to be sick in a place like this. It’s pretty much our paradise.
Anyway like I said, we had to come down. I had an appointment and after running 5 miles on the Legacy Trail yesterday morning, I went here:
A few weeks ago I was having some pain and tightness mostly in my back and it wasn’t going away so I went to see the chiropractor. While I was there he took my blood pressure and I don’t think anyone was more shocked than I to see that it was critically high because typically it is seriously low. My heart rate was actually lower than normal and it caused some concern. Those two things may not seem like such a big deal but there have been a few other things too.
For the past year or so I’ve been dealing with occasional blue toes. The thing is that once they turn blue, it takes days for them to go back to normal and there is no rhyme or reason to why it happens, it just does. The other alarming thing is my eyes. I’ve woken up several times with broken blood vessels in one or both eyes. Oh, and there were those two times I woke up with a blue bottom lip…. You would think that those three things combined would scare me into seeing a doctor but they didn’t. If I have a tingle or a pain that I think may prevent me from running or a cold or the flu, I turn into the biggest hypochondriac on the planet but blood in my eyes and blue toes, meh, it’s nothing.
It was ultimately the migraines or rather my family’s reaction to them that scared me. They’ve gotten worse than ever before and I’ve begun to lose my speech during them. The last time I lost my speech and my vision became very blurry, and then one side of my face went numb. It was scary. MacGyver said it looked like I was drunk but I lost all memory of what happened after I got the headache.
And that’s why Monday morning, I was here:
Answers can never come quick enough, especially when it comes to matters involving multiple issues with your health. I spent a lot of time with the doctor yesterday and even though my blood pressure is starting to normalize naturally, we need to get to the root of the problem so that we can fix it. Obviously there is a reason these things are happening and that’s what we’re looking for, the underlying cause. This is where that saying patience is a virtue comes into play!
So while the answers will be slow at least were headed in the right direction. Today, I’ll be going to the lab for lots of blood work. They’ll be doing the usual CBC, Metabolic Panel and such. They’ll also be testing my Sed Rate and my C-Reactive protein and there will blood work to test my kidney and liver function. The blood work is just a starting point.
The next step is an MRI of my brain. I’m waiting on the insurance company to approve the MRI and the imaging center but I hope I can have that done asap because my doctor would like the results before I go back to Clearwater later in the week. Besides, there’s nothing like dealing with your stupid insurance company when you’re having brain scans, good times.
So, that’s all we know right now. I’m telling you this because I said I would talk about it when I knew more but really, I don’t know anything. The doctor has an idea as to what she’s looking for but until there are more tests, I don’t want to speculate. So, that’s where I am and why I am where I am. Make sense?
Don’t worry though, it’s not all medical tests and blood work, in fact, I’ve spent every spare moment on the trail, running, fishing or canoeing and I’m loving every minute of it. (The doctor said slow running is actually helping to lower my blood pressure and that it’s good for me.) It’s been therapeutic really because if all I had to do was sit around and wait for doctors and my insurance company to get on the same page, I’d go crazy(crazier)!
See, I’m having fun because, fishing!
Last night MacGyver and I took out the little canoe and he caught a small redfish right at the end of our canal which only made me want to fish more. Unfortunately, this is Florida and no sooner than I got the fishing fever the noseeums starting biting and we had to head back home. Plus we were in the canoe which is really boring if Mom isn’t there. Nobody canoes like my Mom. She brings the party hard, trust.
We will definitely try fishing again today. MacGyver is feeling a little bit better and once the blood tests are over later in the afternoon, I’m sure some fishing will be just what the doctor ordered!
When is the last time you went to the doctor?
Ever had an MRI? What part of your body did they scan?
Do you have high blood pressure? If you do, does running help you?