Heart Disease & You~What Problems Do You Have & How Has It Affected You?!

Each of us has found our way to this forum, though many of us have different types of heart disease.  Some people have trouble with high blood pressure, others have had heart attacks, stent placements, congestive heart failure, bypasses, ablations, pericardiectomies, congenital heart disease and some others are looking for ways to protect themselves from becoming the next statistic and are trying to better their health habits!

 

What brought you here to the HealingWell.com Heart and Cardiovascular Forum?, and how has your disease affected you, your lifestyle, your family??

 

Do you have any suggestions to pass along to others in your same position?  Please feel free to continue to visit this post as I feel that by writing it down here and returning later on to look it over, it may help you to get on with your life and find ways to improve it!  It may also be the answer that someone else was looking for and didn't know how to ask.

 

Just write whatever comes to your mind...

Hugs a bunch, Teri

I spose this is an appropriate place to discuss what happened today. I had a follow-up visit with a psychologist. This followed about 8 hours of neuro-psychiatric testing. It was done because I've had some memory problems and found myself doing some of the things my father did in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Things like repeating himself and telling the same story again and again. I don't think I'm quite at that stage, but I HAVE fouond that it's hard for me to keep track of what I've said to whom. Makes telling the truth real important. At least that way I don't have to try to keep track of any lies I might have told to someone. :)

The results I got were rather surprising. I thought that she'd tell me that there was some measurable memory disfunction...and I was really afraid that she'd recommend that I be treated with some sort of psycho-active medication. about the last thing I wanna do is take more meds. But that's not what she told me. Her bottom line conclusion was that I have a lot more physical problems than I'm willing to admit to myself. And this is causing a permanent state of fatigue, which limits some of my cognitive skills, such as memory, problem solving, comprehension, etc. She told me that my scores on most of the tests were pretty high, but she could see that there were certain areas that seemed to be affected (like remembering faces) more than others.

Her suggestion to me was to spend 5 to 15 minutes each HOUR "watching grass grow." That is, doing nothing, either mental or physical. This is a very uncomfortable thing for me to do. I HATE doing nothing. I don't even like to sit and watch tv. I told her that I could meditate several times per day and she thought that was a good idea, but still wants me to watch the darned grass grow.

She also wants me to exercise for the sake of exercise. This is something else that I hate. I can work hard on productive things...and over the last month I've found that I can work until the SOB hits, then relax for a while. The cardiologist says that continuing to "push against that wall" can help promote spontaneous collateral revascularization. I'm all for that. But the psychologist suggested that I only exert myself until "just before" I run out of breath. I'm not sure I know how to do that. And it seems in conflict with what the cardiologist tells me.

So I'm confused. That seems to be more and more of a natural state for me. :) I'm gonna have to find a way to take these "time outs" that she's suggesting that won't make me crazy while trying to preserve my sanity. See, I toldja I was confused. :)

As a summation, it seems that the work stress, the CAD and the bypass surgery have been more of a trauma to my body than I ever thought...and that I'm still trying to heal (it's been almost 9 months since the surgery.) Also the trauma has affected me in ways that I wasn't even aware of.

One of the areas that was measured was depression, and that seemed to be "within acceptable parameters, given the situation." The conclusion there was that the Prozac that I've been taking for the last 7 or so years is still doing its job. Another area that showed up was resentment. Given the situation that's occurred over the past 2.5 years (mainly job and medical malfeasance issues), she seemed to think that the resentment was somewhat natural.

I'm still in the process of processing (if you will) this information that I received today. I'm not exactly sure where I'm gonna go with it. But I don't think that I can watch grass grow for very long before I start doing things like making paper dolls, climbing the walls and chewing on the carpet while foaming at the mouth.

Stay tuned. I think there's more to come on this subject.

Yeah, Teri. Life is too big a deal to take seriously. :)

If I couldn't laugh at some of this stuff, I'd be in big trouble. Sorta like the convicted man said to the hangman, "couldn'y find a cleaner rope to hange me with? I could get an infection from that dirty old thing." :)

I'm just gonna have to try makin lifestyle changes once again. Easier said than done...but I'll do my best. Hell, I've had to do it so many times over the last 8 years or so, you'd think I'd be used to it.

Did you know that when I had my first heart attack, I had long hair that came down to the middle of my back...I usually wore it in a pony tail...and a long beard, sorta like Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top? Well, after that MI, I found myself lying in the hospital bed for a week with a balloon pump keeping my heart going. Sounded like an old washing machine. That's the time when I married Gayle in the ICU.
Here's a pic of the wedding ceremony

Well, anyway, as I lay there day after day, going thru hot and cold flashes, my head would sweat like crazy. And it began to smell rather unpleasant. That's when I had it cut real short and I've kept it that way ever since. And my beard just became a rather short goatee. But now I've decided to let the whole beard grow out again. Just to remind me of the new changes I have to make. I think I'll keep the hair short...cuz it's just about completely white now. Back then it was dark brown with a few gray streaks. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna keep the hair short, just cuz it's a lot easier to wash grease out of after crawling under a car or truck. (and old geezers look funny in ponytails or braids.)

Yeah...big deal. But it came to mind, so I thought I'd write it down. :)