… in which I’m maybe not the best patient ever Previously on The Day I Didn’t Get a Blood Transfusion, our hero starts losing blood and is instructed to discontinue Coumadin, one of her blood thinners. The ever-stoic Dr. Flatline admits he can’t decide whether she should go to the hospital promptly for a transfusion…
… in which we meet the cast of characters and discover there’s a problem Cast of Characters Patricia: Erstwhile attorney, heart patient. Has braved around-the-world travel and survived a Widowmaker, yet still is uncomfortable with discussing “girl things.” And with spiders. The Buddhist: Patricia’s longsuffering husband, caretaker and all around good guy. Official transporter of…
I’ve not been doing a very good job of posting the bits and bobs I wrote during my month away from the blog with that medical setback. Below is an update I wrote in February. I’ve deleted a giant part about guilt. Cliff’s Notes version: I feel really guilty about my husband having to do…
A month! I launch this blog and then disappear for a month! Sheesh. Sorry about that. Shortly after publishing, I had a medical SNAFU that left me too weak and fog-headed to put words together in a way that would make sense outside my blood-deprived mind. I did manage to scribble a bunch of notes…
Heart disease is the number one cause of death for American women. It kills more women than breast cancer and all the other cancers combined. That’s nutty, right? I knew that women could have heart attacks, but I’d really thought it was a field dominated by men. Apparently I was not the only person who…
I’m giving up on the recipes page, at least for now. Taking pix and noting every step just adds too much time to an already cumbersome process. Plus, I get the feeling that I am in an extreme minority with all my food restrictions for health and medicine interaction on top of the restrictions based…
Today was another gym day. I’ve decided to start calling Cardiac Rehabilitation “the gym.” It sounds so much less heart-patienty, doesn’t it? It’s 3 days a week for 12 weeks, then presumably I continue afterward at some other gym that doesn’t wire you to heart monitors and take your blood pressure 3 times per visit.…
Apparently stress is not very good for you. I’d certainly heard that before but never really put much stock in it. It would probably sound crazy to say I liked stress or I enjoyed having a lot of stress in my life, but I guess I kind of did. I was good at it. If…
At cardiac rehab today, I was pedaling through imaginary Tuscany or rural Ireland on the recumbent bicycle when Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal started playing on the clinic’s iPod speakers. I was immediately flashed back to my pre-law school job at Coventry Health Care and my awesome friend Susie.* Hearing no more than the opening beat,…
I really had no idea how frustrating Injured Reserve is. Even if it is a temporary situation, which ohmydeargods I hope it is, it is excruciating. I’ve grown weary of getting winded when I climb the stairs to go to my bedroom or the bathroom; I feel useless that I can’t even do the dishes…
