Health Update

I must admit this past week or so has been a little scary. Lots of pain, hospital visits, and more recently a minor-stroke.

This is what happened. After I had returned from the hospital last week I felt fatigued and slept in late. For some reason I was feeling completely exhausted and my extremities were coId.

I had recently caught a cold/flu bug and I thought that was the reason for my symptoms, or perhaps I was just worn out from all the pain thanks to mr. kidney stone.

But when I finally got up and looked in the mirror I could hardly see because my vision was blurred and my left eye was blood red. I don’t mean bloodshot either — I mean the white part was completely blood red. It didn’t click at the time that I might be hemorrhaging because I thought it was related to the cold.

So now I was bleeding in my eyes as well as from my kidneys. I also had a really bad headache and my wife was complaining that she couldn’t understand me because I was slurring my words. (Good thing I wasn’t podcasting at the time).

I felt like I had aged years overnight. Of course I still didn’t clue in that it might be something worse than a cold so I went back to bed. Duh!

A couple of days later I called an old friend who was a retired Dr. and he told me that I probably had a minor stroke (Transient Ischemic Attack). Another call to the family Dr. confirmed this diagnosis and said it was a good thing that I’m in a habit of taking an aspirin before going to bed.

I read that 50% of people that have minor strokes end up having a major (unrecoverable) stroke within the year. Looking back over the years I realize that this has not been my first TIA, so I guess I’m living on borrowed time (aren’t we all in one way or another).

Anyhow, I’m recovering nicely but it has been a wake-up call and my nurse friend says that it could be a prelude to the next big one that I might not be so lucky.

I’ve just realized the summer is almost gone and all that I did was blog. Maybe I should go for a walk and smell the roses or something (if there are any left). But first back to bed.