Pills, lots and lots of pills

I’ve finally learned to take a pill, lots and lots of pills. I was fifty-nine when I learned to take them by the handful. I’ve also learned that there is a direct correlation between what I ingest and my health or lack thereof. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I’m coming to this realization late I confess so don’t get mad at me. I learn a lot of things at a glacial pace and I realize it and readily confess; I maybe slow but I’m certainly not very fast. The stroke had a lot to do with my current knowledge. I’m working with my doctor to fine tune my health so I certainly cannot speaking for the masses by any means.

The first thing I learned is that doctors do not know what your real condition will be. Like the weather they can only tell you what the prognosis is according to what the majority of patient have done. You are unique to them and your ability’s and desires will take you where your body decides. The doctors and nurses figured I’d never walk again, that is if I survived the stroke in the first place. I fooled them and that gave me no end of pleasure. My recovery was a test of wills, mind over body to get the results I wanted. Not to say that it was easy or pleasant, a lot of hard work and sweat went into my recovery and it surprised a number of people not only me. I was blessed with the desire to recover and I had the muscle mass and the brain power to get the job done.

When I had the stroke it felt like my arm was dislocated from the shoulder socket from just hanging there. My arm had recovered remarkably well and I felt it was finally healing. But my arm was going bad on me, a lot of pain when I moved it and reaching the mouse on the computer was excruciatingly painful. So I saw my doctor and a physical therapist and they made pronunciation on me and my arm. But that didn’t seem right to me and I kept looking for answers that would satisfy me and let me get to work on them. The therapist said something about hyper-extending and recommended therapy but to me that sounded like something I was doing and therefor was curable if only I could find out what. So I bought a wireless mouse and the pain in my arm finally cleared. Not rocket science granted but knowing my body saved me the expense and therapy.

More recently I was having a bad time with my G.I. system and even had some bleeding as a result. I asked my doctor about it, she asked me about food and if I could have had some bad water; sounded like I was living under third world conditions. She recommended a series of test beginning with my blood and ending up in a colonoscopy which I wasn’t too thrilled about. I told her I didn’t “feel” like I’d eaten something bad. But I kept looking and kept a record of when it affected me. Sure enough one day I was making coffee and I refilled the jug I keep my filter water in, I though it looked a little odd. There was a slight discoloration that turned out to be a kind of mold and the filter itself had gone way to long without replacement. I corrected that problem and my G.I. problems cleared up in about a week or so. Turns out I was living like a third world person and was being poison by my water.

Remember that you are unique and your body is unique. Know what’s going on with your body, for your sake keep records of your treatments and the problems you are having. I can’t recommend keeping a log of your blood-pressures enough. I have the utmost regards for my doctor and her abilities and I trust her with my life. But in these days of doctors being under such pressure to deliver I want mine to be a part of my health. I keep mine updated on what I think is going on with my body because I know it best. If something doesn’t feel right then it’s not. I’ve realized that my body is a high performance machine and I need to make sure it’s running as well as it can.

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From my New York Phase, I loved playing with the light