STRAYCAT’S DOGGONE BLOG

Life Day 23112: Time To Re-activate This BLOG

October 22, 2010 on 3:58 pm | In Homefront | No Comments

It’s been too long since I posted anything on this BLOG. Damned FaceBook and Twitter anyway. Since I have this BLOG I may as well use it.
I am now retired and living in Palo Alto, CA. So far, retirement is boring. I’ve become pretty lazy, and tend towards procrastination (but then, I was pretty much always like that).
I retired in June of 2009 for medical reasons. I had a minor heart attack
on May 31st, 2009 (if you can consider any heart attack minor).  Two of the arteries to my heart were completely blocked and they went in through my groin and inserted two Stents. It took me completely by surprise. I had none of the usual symptoms one expects for a Heart attack. All I had was a little tightness in my upper chest. I thought I had the Flu. When the symptoms worsened over the next 36 hours and I had trouble catching my breath, I drove to an Emergency Room nearby (I was in Salt Lake City at the time). They informed me I was having a heart attack and rushed me into surgery where they inserted the above mentioned Stents. Evidently, I had been having the heart attack for the entire day and a half that I had been waiting for the “Flu” symptoms to subside. They also diagnosed me with Type 2 Diabetes along with Lipid Disorder (High Cholesterol) and  Hypertension (High Blood Pressure). I knew that I was high risk for all of those things due to heredity, my nomadic lifestyle, irregular hours, poor diet, a lifetime of smoking cigarettes and drinking to excess for almost 20 years of my adult life, but had no idea I was in such poor physical condition. Needless to say, it was an “eye opener”.
[An amusing an heartwarming side story related to the ordeal outlined above concerns the MMM (million mile mutts). I arrived at the hospital at about 6:00pm in the evening and went in to the Emergency Room. Then everything outlined above happened. Meanwhile the MMM were alone in the truck. Early the next morning, I told the ICU nurse that I had 2 dogs in my truck that needed to be tend to (by this time they had been alone in the truck for over 15 hours). She informed Security and they came up and got the keys to my truck. She (the security person) said that she would retrieve the dogs from the truck and call the Humane Society to pick them up and board them until I was released from the hospital. She returned about half an hour later and said that she was afraid to open the truck because the MMM seemed too ferocious (just as I had trained them). The nurse consulted with the doctor and I was allowed to be wheeled from the ICU to the parking lot to open the door and get the dogs out so they could be leashed. Once they saw me, they were content. I leashed them and introduced them to the security lady and was wheeled back upstairs to ICU. About an hour later the Security lady returned my keys and the Humane Society lady said that she was taking the dogs and they would be boarded (without charge because it was an emergency) until I was released. The Security lady said that she had never seen such a transformation. One minute they were vicious because they were concerned about their “daddy’ and they were ‘guarding’ their ‘home’, and the next they were a couple of lambs while she was waiting for the Humane Society to arrive. At any rate, it eased my mind knowing that they were being properly tended].
As you might expect, I am now taking a plethora of different Medications for my ailments and afflictions. At the onset of my diagnosis for Diabetes, they put me on two different types injectable Insulin (the names of which I can’t remember). This was due to the fact that my blood sugar was over 400 at my initial test because my body was trying to combat the heart attack. (This is the actual reason that I had to retire from truck driving. The DOT does not allow anyone who is using injectable Insulin to drive a Commercial Vehicle. If not for that, I would probably still be driving).  After being re-evaluated by the VA in September, my blood sugar was much better and I was taken off Insulin and am now taking Metformin, which is controlling my Diabetes quite nicely. I take this twice daily. I gave serious thought to resuming my driving career upon this change of Meds, but decided to just stay retired. For my Heart, I’m taking Carvedilol. This too, I take twice daily. Because of the Stents, I’m taking Plavix (Clopidogrel) once daily to thin my blood. For my Hypertension, I’m taking Lisinopril once a day. For my Cholesterol I take Crestor (Rosuvastatin), also once a day. In addition to these five prescriptions, I take one “baby” (81mg) Aspirin every day, one Centrum Silver Multivitamin, and three Omega 3 Fish Oil Tablets every day. That is a total of 12 pills a day. The price one pays for good Health.
The VA facility here in Palo Alto is “top drawer”. They provide excellent support for all my health issues. Dermatology found a couple of Melanomas and took care of them. Optometry gave me a pair of bifocals last year, and this time gave me two pair of glasses, one for distance and one for reading, because I had difficulty adjusting to the bifocals. My GM doctor is currently treating me for a Bursitis on my left elbow. He drained it about a month ago, but it came back. Now I have to decide whether I want to try to treat it with Steroids or Surgery. He explained in great detail, the benefits and drawbacks of each procedure. I have about two  more weeks to decide which option I prefer. Also, next month, I begin Physical Therapy for a chronic pain in my right shoulder.
That about sums up the last year and a half of my life. I do some traveling, but mostly I just “geek” on my computer to wile away the hours. Pretty boring huh.