Hypertension 37: More Dreck :)

Hypertension/Disabilities: just when you think it is safe to go back in the water and relax, there always is something else wandering into your life to keep you on edge. With any disability, little is ever settled permanently.

Or perhaps it is that it has been a week since my last post. Maybe I’m just writing this to put up something new—write something fast, even if it ends up being short. Because, apart from worrying about Hypertension, and worrying that maybe I’ll have to eat healthy tofu for the rest of my life, now I have to worry about losing my fans.

Assuming that I have any fans.

But actually I’m not all that worried about any of YOU, because who even knows if you even EXIST? The only way I’d really know, I mean really really know for sure that you are real is if right now you take a ten dollar bill and put it into an envelope and mail it to Victor Schwartzman, 596 Spruce Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3G 2Y9, Canada. Only after I get your money in the mail can I be sure you are there.

Really, you must admit there is no other way you can prove you exist.

Now that we have that cleared up, I do have one more worry…about me: that, eventually, due to the very helpful treatment I am getting for Hypertension, my legs may fall off.

It is Saturday. I have just finished my second week back at work. It’s gone well, actually. I feel as if I am on top of my work. Of course, I returned to significantly less work than usual, to a level of work relatively easy to handle. Less to juggle, less to remember.

I have been a bit dizzy, it is true. Not very dizzy. More like the you’ve been sitting too long and suddenly get up dizzy. More of a tired dizzy. Not the dizzy that makes you fall over. Generally dizzy, generally tired—but more focused at work than I thought I’d be.

In fact, the biggest problem I have “suffered” on my return to work has been my…ass. Yep: all that sitting, day after day, in an office chair, makes my (lovely) buttocks sore. I’ve become too used to the couch. Yes yes yes: you might say this is an asinine situation, that I am really bottoming out--so all I can rebut with is the obvious: butt out. You’re being cheeky.

During lunch, I walk through Winnipeg’s skywalk system. When it is -30 Celsius in the Winter you need a protected environment as much as possible, so Winnipeg has a network of enclosed, heated walkways allowing you to wander freely from one shopping environment to another. Hey, it’s good for business.

Before I left on medical leave, I would briskly walk to a mall food court 15 minutes or so away, get some fattening food to go, and then briskly walk back—talk about a health jaunt! I felt fine. Especially after eating those deep fried chicken wings!

But this past week I began noticing that my legs ached when I walked briskly. Really ached. I thought maybe it’s because of the extra weight of my overcoat (needed to get to the mall system), the snow boots, etc. But that did not make much sense--before I returned to work I exercised in the gym every other day on an elliptical treadmill, walking very briskly for forty minutes, and had no aches at all. Yet now my legs ache. Why?

I mentioned this to my spouse the nurse and she advises that the latest information about statins, one of the prescription medications I take, is that a very rare side effect could be such aching. If so, the aching could be caused because the statin medication is causing the blood flow to my legs to lessen, which in turn leads to muscle damage, which in turn can be permanent, which in turn can lead to permanent pain in my legs. Okay: maybe they would not fall off, but at that point would I care?

Hey. This has been a long post, after all.