health – Page 4 – commonplacebook.com

I Love Water Aerobics

Post author:HFM
Post published:November 11, 2006
Post category:Journal

I keep meaning to blog that… I’ve been going for the past several weeks, and I ended up joining the Jordan YMCA because I really like the classes, and I started going more than once a week. Get this – I actually got out of bed and made it to Saturday morning classes at 8 a.m. for several weeks in a row now. I went to the deep water class for the first time on Thursday night, which really kicked my ass. It’s not especially harder, just exercising a lot of different muscles (like abs) that I haven’t worked out so extensively. And I went this morning also. My goal is to go three times a week on Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday morning, but if I can at least go twice, that would be great.
I’m surprised how much I missed being in the water all the time; we used to swim quite a bit as kids. I’m also starting to get addicted to the endorphin high I get after the class is over — I just feel amazing driving home.

No Change!

Post author:HFM
Post published:November 7, 2006
Post category:Health

The message on the answering machine from my cardiologist says that there’s no change in my heart and everything is fine. Yay! I’m apparently a paranoid lunatic for worrying about it. But I’m a healthy paranoid lunatic, and that’s what matters. That’s quite a relief.

Cardio Appointment

Post author:HFM
Post published:November 3, 2006
Post category:Health

Okay, I have to write about this, because it’s been worrying me for a day, and I have get it out of my head. I went to my cardiologist yesterday for my “routine once a year post-surgery” visit. I had a vague expectation that I would be getting and EKG and seeing the doctor, and that’s pretty much what they repeated when I went in. However, the nurse guy who said this when I entered the exam room was brand new, so it’s possible he didn’t have the complete scoop on what the tests were supposed to be.

After I met with Dr. Trippi, though, he mentioned he wanted an echo-cardio gram, and it seemed sort of like he was tacking that on at the last minute. And then he went to find one of the echo technicians, and there was a wait while they figured out what testing room I could use, which also seemed like the test hadn’t been pre-scheduled.

When they were taking me from the exam room to the testing room, I could hear Dr. Trippi transcribing his notes about me in his office across the hall, which is rather creepy to hear a disembodied voice speaking about you: “Patient is Mineart, age 38….” I tried to hang back and hear what else he was saying, but the nurse was too far ahead and I had to catch up.

It was kind of a difficult echo – basically an ultrasound of my heart. They had trouble seeing everything, especially getting good pictures of my mitral valve, so it was somewhat painful. And at the end of it, the echo technician said something that struck me as odd — I don’t know if I can quote word-for-word, but it was something like “How long did they tell you the repair was good for?” And of course, I had been told that it was supposed to last until forever, so that’s what I told her.

So they bundled me all up and sent me out, but I of course don’t know what they saw on the echo, or if there’s some sort of problem that they didn’t tell me about. And it’s been worrying me ever since. Gf course, it could be I’m assuming too much or imagining things, and I hope that’s all it is. And I shouldn’t worry until I get more concrete information. But it’s sort of hard to write something funny and entertaining right now.

Update: It didn’t really turn out to be anything, thankfully.

Frickin’ Poison Ivy

Post author:HFM
Post published:July 10, 2006
Post category:Journal

I’ve had a wicked case of poison ivy for the week and a half. We have a ton on it in our yard, and I’ve been spraying Round Up on it like crazy, but somehow I still managed to get into it, probably while using the weed wacker in the front yard. And I’ve never had it before, so I didn’t realize what teh rash was at first – I thought it was a nasty bug bite. So I managed to spread the oil all over my legs and arms before I caught on an started washing everything.
It finally dawned on my about Thursday, and I went to the doctor on Friday afternoon to get cortizone cream. That seems to be helping, but I’m still wide awake at 3:00 am while the itching drives me nuts.
We’re still moving Stephanie out of her house. We keep making trips at night and on the weekends, but it’s slow going doing it one load at a time. I think we’re three quarters of the way done; we down to stuff that still needs to be sorted and packed. Hopefully soon this endless move will be over and we can settle down to getting stuff organized and squared away.

LA Times article on annual physical exams

Post author:HFM
Post published:February 14, 2006
Post category:Health

The L.A. Times has an article on annual physical exams, discussing what doctors look for and suggesting that there should be a different balance between the physical portion of the exam, and the discussion of personal history and health questions and concerns. The problem is the headline and introductory paragraphs, which suggest that going to an annual exam at all may not be neccessary. It’s not until the end of the article that they say “Instead of receiving a standard battery of tests, adults should be given more targeted health screenings, according to preventive health authorities. Here are the main tests they should have, and when…” And then they provide a list of the standard things many of which my physician covers in my annual exam, along with things that should be checked regularly if more infrequently than once a year.
If I hadn’t gone to my annual exam last March, I’d be dead right now. No joke. My friend Jen’s sister finally gave in and went to an exam, and doctors discovered a grapefruit sized tumor that she had probably been developing for years. Stephanie went to her exam and found a fibroadenoma that needed to be removed.
I don’t think regular health exams are anything to screw around with, and while I agree that massive tests for things that may not be in your family history are probably silly, I don’t think we should be discouraging people from going to the doctor “regularly.” Let’s be realistic; most people don’t go every single year, but they should be talking to their physician and getting some routine tests on some sort of schedule, at least.
And the worst thing about this is that the distinctions are subtle enough that people are reading the article and taking it as a license to avoid the doctor altogether. I found the article on Fark.com, and that was the direction of some of the discussion surrounding it.

speaking of hating stuff: antiseptic hand sanitizer

Post author:HFM
Post published:October 11, 2005
Post category:Health

I think that Methodist Hospital has gone back to using the hand sanitizer I loathe the smell of. When I was in the hospital for the heart surgery, I know for certain the brand (and scent) was different than the foul stuff that they used back when I had my appendix emergency two years ago. When I was in the hospital then, I couldn’t figure out for the first several days what the smell I hated so bad was, until they took me off the catheter and I had to use the bathroom myself and wash my hands with it. I hated it so bad at the time that I got out of bed and went outside the hospital with my rolling IV bag and everything, just to get some fresh air.

But the same stuff was back when I was in the emergency room last week; I could smell it today in the hallways when I went in for my appointment. I need to learn what the brand name of that stuff is, so I can write hate mail to the company that makes it.

I came home around noon

Post author:HFM
Post published:October 4, 2005
Post category:Health

The conclusion the doctors reached was that I lifted too much and put strain on my sternum. Funny, I could have told them that when I went in. I did, actually. So I have painkillers, which didn’t do much.

I still think there’s something more wrong than that, but they didn’t, so I’m home.

Emergency room fun

Post author:HFM
Post published:October 4, 2005
Post category:Health

I’m on my way to the emergency room because I think whatever I did this weekend was pretty serious and now I can’t really lie down or even sit without pain shooting through my chest and back, when I breathe, it hurts like hell. I think I must have hurt my sternum.

Stephanie’s coming to pick me up now…

The sternum is an important part of the body

Post author:HFM
Post published:October 3, 2005
Post category:Health

Which you find out when you have your sternum cut up for surgery. It’s been five months since my surgery, and my sternum still bothers me regularly, and hurts like hell, especially when I lift heavy stuff, like I did this weekend. I always browse through https://www.stealthbelt.com/ to find any product that would help. Today it’s been particularly bad, to the point where when I breathe out and my chest moves, I feel a sharp pain that makes me gasp.

On top of that, the incision scar hurts too, although in an entirely different way; it’s more of a dull ache. So I have these two different types of pain going on, pretty much constantly, which sometimes I can tune out, and sometimes not.

And the whole bra thing doesn’t help. One of the things that was kind of crappy about all the documentation they gave us for the surgery was that most of it was written with men in mind, and didn’t cover the unique problems that women have with the surgery due to having breasts, which pull on the sternum, necessitating wearing a bra, which irritates the incision. They could have done something to address those issues and offer advice on dealing with them, but they didn’t.

I have glue in my hair

Post author:HFM
Post published:July 18, 2005
Post category:Health

I had two health appointments last night and this morning: my follow-up sleep study to see how well I’m doing on my CPAP machine, and my follow-up cardiologist appointment to see how I’m doing after my surgery.

I didn’t manage to get all the glue washed out of my hair from the electrodes that were glued there for my sleep study last night. I had 16 of them attached to my head and face and other body parts. This time, though, I had fewer things to deal with; I had only one microphone glued to my neck rather than 2, and no breathing tubes, because I had the machine.

One of the things they mentioned, that I noticed, too; I have dreams again. I’m actually sleeping long enough to fall into REM sleep and have dreams, which I wasn’t doing before; their study showed I wasn’t getting any REM sleep at all. This had probably been going on for years actually, which you can tell if you look at the dreams section of my journal, where there’s a gap of about three years between dreams that I remember enough to write down. So the return of dreaming is a really Good Thing, as Martha would say.

The cardiologist’s appointment was really short and not much happened. I expected to have a electrocardiogram, but they didn’t do one. And Dr. Yee didn’t even realize I had the heart valve surgery; he had to take notes. He listened to my heart and said everything sounded good. I should be walking a mile a day, or biking, etc. I also should be able to lift whatever I normally lifted before surgery. I’m supposed to see him again in on October 17th at 9:00 am and they’ll do an electrocardiogram then, and then again once a year for the next several years to monitor how my heart is doing.

While I was in the waiting room, I was watching the health channel they have on TV — same one that I wrote about before, with the dog trained to detect a woman’s epileptic seizures before she had them, to warn her so she could prepare. Turns out the channel I was watching is Accent Health. Here’s a news article on the subject.

I made notes this time because the program today was on healthy eating; they said studies show that lycopene in tomatoes can reduce women’s risk of heart disease by 30% if you eat 1/4 cup of tomato sauce a day. I wonder how that translates to V-8 juice.