So, about my recent health scare

There I was last Friday at the endoscopy center, awaiting my procedure.

I was feeling pretty good, all things considered. Everything was going so well.

I’d done the regimen the night before. I hadn’t eaten in 36 hours. I was even joking with the nurses.

“Is this the place?” I asked after changing into a gown and footie socks and being led to a gurney in the back. “Is this where the magic happens?”

The nurse who was taking care of me winked and patted the mattress. “That depends on what you’re into,” she said with a grin, and bopped away.

“What on earth?” said a second nurse who was preparing to take my blood pressure.

“I think she’s talking about butt stuff,” I whispered conspiratorially.

I laughed at my audaciousness. I’m glad because it would be a long time before I would laugh again.

The nurse took my arm and cuffed me.

“I suffer from white coat syndrome, just so you know,” I bantered. White coat syndrome is what they call it when a person’s blood pressure is higher than normal due to the stress of being at the doctor’s.

The cuff tightened and I waited. The nurse made an odd sound.

“A little high?” I asked.

“You could say that,” she replied. “Let’s try this again.”

The cuff tightened. Again, I waited.

Again, the nurse made a sound.

Except it was different this time. I detected a note of concern.

I turned around to look at the numbers.

From that moment on, my memory is mostly a blur.

Over the next 45 minutes, the nurses took my blood pressure almost a dozen times, at first to see if it would settle down enough for me to have the procedure, and then, I can only assume, to see if I would set any records.

There were no more jokes. I remember the nurse asking me if I was taking any blood pressure medication.

I remember replying that yes, I’d been prescribed medication, but no, I hadn’t been taking it regularly. I’d been trying to lose weight through diet and exercise and hoping that my blood pressure would improve as a result.

“You sound just like this woman I met in the ER,” said a woman’s voice from my right. There was someone in the bed next to me but the curtain was pulled so I could not see who it was.

“Not to scare you, but I used to be an ER nurse. This woman — she was just 40 years old — came in with high blood pressure and said almost exactly what you just said, word for word.”

“Yeah? What happened?” I asked distractedly.

“She had a stroke and died right in front of us,” said the disembodied voice.

For fuck’s sake, lady, I remember thinking. That’s not going to calm me down!

It didn’t. I only continued to get more and more anxious and scared with every passing minute.

“You’re going to need to go to your happy place,” said the nurse who was taking the readings. “You really need to.”

I tried to think of where my happy place might be, but nothing came to mind.

Long moments passed. My mind worked frantically as blood thundered in my ears.

At last, I found it.

In my mind’s eye, I saw myself sitting at home on the couch beside my wife Adrianna. I rested my head on her shoulder and pulled close to her.

I felt a calm wash over me briefly and the cuff tightened again.

The numbers stayed high.

At last, when it was apparent that my procedure would be canceled, I got dressed and stood at the desk. The doctor, they said, wanted to speak with me.

Dr. Le is his name. Dr. Bruce Le. At the moment, I did not find this funny at all.

Within minutes he appeared, still wearing his splash shield and latex gloves.

“You need to see your primary care doctor or cardiologist today,” he told me. “You could drop dead any minute.”

* * *

I had a lot to think about in the hours between leaving the endoscopy clinic and seeing my primary care doctor.

Such as, whether or not every second would be my last.

How would it feel to stroke out? I wondered. Would it all go black and just end? Here one moment and gone the next?

Or would it be like that poor old man I had seen on my way home from Gurnee Mills mall when I was a young man in the early 90s?

Gurnee Mills was located an hour and a half from where I’d lived, and I had to do some highway driving to get there. At one of the toll stops on the way home, I heard a commotion in the lane to my left.

The toll booth operator was yelling something to the people in the car.

“HE’S HAVING A STROKE!” an elderly woman yelled back.

In the driver’s seat of the car I saw an old man frozen behind the wheel, his face waxen, his eyes bulging, and his mouth pulled back in what looked like a silent scream.

Nope, I didn’t want to go out like that, either.

I thought about how I had gotten here.

I mean, yes — I knew it was my fault, of course. I’d known that I had high blood pressure. That’s why I’d been prescribed the medication. But I hadn’t taken it seriously. Like a fool, I’d hoped it would somehow get better on its own.

Instead, it had gotten worse. A lot worse.

Part of it — no, a great deal of it — was stress. Since moving to Florida, my wife and I have been hit with one minor (and occasionally major) crisis after another, over and over, in a never-ending cycle of shit.

We call it The Wheel of Mayhem, aka The Wheel of Doom, and the universe (or the proprietor of this carnival, who I unaffectionately call Fucko the Clown) spins it for us every morning.

What did we win today? Categories include:

Something Expensive Inside Your Home Has Broken

That Third Trip to the Mechanic Still Has Not Fixed Your Car

Oh, Look! Another Nastygram From the HOA

Those Drug-Addled Teens Are Fucking Around Outside the House Again

The Cats Are Fighting / A Cat Is Sick and a Trip to the Vet Will Cost Three Hundred Dollars

Here Are Ten More Ways the World Is Going to Hell

“Wooden’t” You Know It? Another Backyard Tree Needs to Come Down

It’s all so tiresome. It’s gotten to the point now that I just walk around waiting for the next shoe to drop and kick me in the ass.

Peace and relaxation are flights of fancy. Much of the time, I feel like the world is on fire and it’s raining gasoline.

But more than anything else that day, I thought of Adrianna. I thought about how I would miss her, and about how shitty it would be for me to leave her alone to deal with the cats and the house and the cars and all those daily calamities on the Wheel of Doom.

It was such a surreal feeling, coming face to face with my own mortality.

I wish I could say that I experienced some great epiphany or realization, but all I really understood was that we are all here for a short time and I’d let a bunch of bullshit distractions take my attention away from what’s important. And unlike a lot of people who have walked this world, I’d been lucky enough to find someone who made my stay here not just worthwhile, but wonderful.

* * *

Today is Friday, October 27 and this morning I had a follow-up appointment with my doctor.

It went well. The medication is controlling my blood pressure to the tune of 112 over 64, and I feel good.

This time, I will be sure to take my medication as I’m supposed to.

I have a referral for an outpatient echocardiogram to see how my heart looks, and my next checkup is scheduled for three months from now.

Barring any surprises, I expect to have my weight down another 10 pounds and hopefully be better by then.

That’s my plan, anyway.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Image credit: “Created” by me using Stable Diffusion, an AI image generator.

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