Excuse any typos...I wrote this on my phone.
I realize that is a little dramatic but the second half of this year has been scary and eye opening. I have to make significant changes to my lifestyle or I won't have a life to style.
Let me back up to last summer. I started noticing my legs would hurt when I went grocery shopping. I thought it was just because I fucking hated grocery shopping. Then I noticed my legs hurt any time I walked, and the longer I would walk, the more they would hurt. It was in both legs, starting in the calf and then into my thighs and hamstrings. Walking anywhere left my legs burning from hips to ankles, and I felt like I'd been running for miles. I thought maybe I needed to give them a good stretch but after a few months, climbing the stairs left me completely drained, in pain and out of breath.
So of course I went to Dr. Google and one of the first things to pop up was peripheral artery disease. I will be honest. The possibility scared the shit out of me. I knew my cholesterol was really high, I was overweight, smoking, lazy and had coronary disease in the family. I went through horrible months of fear and anxiety that I was going to die at home and my son would find me, or I would die at work on a Saturday when I work alone and no one would find me until Monday.
I wanted to see if it would get better if I quit smoking. After six months there was no improvement. It was getting worse but there were still things I could try before resorting to a doctor. If you know me, you know I really, really have a lot of anxiety about trying to find a doctor. I've had my new job and new insurance for almost five years and never once went to a doctor for anything. I knew without a shadow of a doubt I had PAD, and my new fears were that either the doctor wouldn't listen to me, or they were going to tell my I was going to die right away.
Then my boyfriend had his third heart attack. I will never forget any of that experience as long as I live. He wasn't feeling well one night and went to the ER. He sent me a text saying everything looked OK and they were just going to keep him overnight for observation. I went to see him the next morning and he looked terrible. He was having trouble breathing and the nurses told me I needed to leave so they could run some tests. I told him I would see him in the evening after I took my son to his dad's. I expected him to be home by the time I got back.
An hour after I left, the hospital called and told me I needed to come back right away because "he took a turn and went south pretty quick." Getting back to the hospital was the longest hour of my life, and it would be another three hours in the ICU waiting room before I could get back to see him.
Long story short, he had a heart attack and went into cardiac arrest. They had to shock him eight times. They opened up his arteries and put more stents in. When I saw him, he was in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator. They didn't let me stay long. I went home that night, and it was the first night in five years that I had spent alone. It was surreal. I didn't know what to do with myself. So I Googled. The survival rate for this kind of shit is abysmal. That could happen to me, and I wouldn't have the "experience" to know something just isn't right. So I finally got online and scheduled an appointment. The soonest I could get in as a new patient was six weeks.
This fucker is as stubborn as I am and he lived. He has had to make some significant life changes, like quitting smoking and eating better, watching his sodium. Two months later, he is still wearing a LifeVest to monitor his heart and shock him if needed. So far so good on that. He is doing cardiac rehab and it will still be a while before he goes back to work. If he goes back. But he is doing much better and if he stays off the cigarettes, takes his meds and does all that other shit, he should live a good long while.
So back to me. This is my blog, not his. I saw a PA at Sentara in Virginia Beach. I weighed in at 175 pounds. My blood pressure was 186/93. We talked about everything. My depression, my anxiety, my cholesterol, my leg pain. She listened to everything I said. She immediately put me on medication for blood pressure and changed my antidepressant. She ordered blood work and an arterial ultrasound of my legs. When my labs came back the next day, she prescribed something for my cholesterol and a Vitamin D supplement.
I went for my ultrasound the other day. The procedure itself wasn't bad at all. The only part that sucked is they made me do calf raises so they could do the ultrasound a second time and compare the blood flow during claudication events vs normal resting blood flow. They wouldn't tell me anything because "I don't want you asking what's next" but I saw my ankle-brachial index for my legs on the screen. ABI is basically the ratio of the blood pressure in your legs to the blood pressure in your arms. Mine was 0.65 in one leg and 0.7 in the other. Anything below 0.99 is indicative of PAD and my numbers put me in the moderate PAD category. My doctor called a few hours later and said I have "abnormalities in my blood flow" and the vascular specialist would contact me in a few days to schedule an appointment.
So that's where I am now. I've been reading about the surgery for this shit and it is simply not going to be an option. The recovery time can be long, and I can't be off work right now. So I have to change how I eat and I have to start exercising. Just one week on medication, my blood pressure is already significantly improved. I cut way, way back on the coffee creamer. I drink two normal size cups a day, if that, with a lot less creamer than I used to consume. I've switched to tea and reduced the amount of Splenda I put in it. My heartburn is all but gone. Other than that, I still feel the same. But it's only been a week on medications.
I spend a lot of time trying out calorie tracking apps but I really hate measuring and tracking. I get obsessive about numbers and being under my targets. Having to watch so many things is making me crazy. I took MFP off my phone. I have my FitBit app but that doesn't track sodium, which I need to watch. Since we have to make just about everything from scratch, it's very tedious. I don't have the mental energy for all that.
I also spend a lot of time looking at recipes and how to make things low sodium. That, too, is exhausting. Right now I'm so overwhelmed by all of it. Every day is a struggle.
The best exercise for PAD is walking, even though it's walking that brings on the pain. It's getting colder and I just don't want to walk outside. I have a stationary bike. I plan to start with that and yoga on December 1. My ultimate goal is to get back into weight lifting and eventually be able to Turbo Jam again. I want to lose about 40 pounds and be able to walk and roller skate without pain. Mostly, I want to live. I don't know if there are issues with my heart but I would be willing to be there are. Call it vain but I don't want to have open heart surgery and have my tattoo on my chest all fucked up.
I also miss blogging here. This blog was always my release. It kept me focused on my health and fitness. So, I'm going to try to start posting regularly again. At this point, I don't know what my actual plan is. I don't want to log food into MFP or any other app. I don't want to obsess about food amounts down the gram. I don't want to log every exercise calorie burned. So we will see...
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