My little surprise

I know this is something a lot of folks have gone through, and I even suspected (without really believing) that one day it might happen to me. I just didn’t expect it to hit me like an out-of-control bullet train. Maybe it’s happened to others like that, too.

It started simply enough. There was a tightness in my chest. It worried me a little (yes, I admit, I should have been more concerned) but I generally ignored it. I decided I’d go to the doctor’s office if it didn’t clear up.

It didn’t clear up. It got worse, and by the time it got worse, the doctor’s office was closed. It got worse and worse. I ended up gasping my way into the emergency room, having a lot of trouble breathing. Here’s where things got interesting if not downright shocking; at least puzzling. I thought I was having a heart attack. Nope.

The first thing they did was sit me down and take my blood pressure. “What about my heart attack,” I was thinking.

Anyway, my blood pressure was shooting past Saturn and accelerating. Much higher, it might have escaped our solar system.

I’m not going to say what that first reading was, because some of you will be saying, “Well, mine was higher, you sissy.” Suffice it to say, later, when I told the Baby Sister about it, she said, “Darn, Dave, that’s stroke territory!” Thanks, Baby Sis.

Just to make sure, they did an E.K.G and took a chest X-ray and gave me the full stethoscope treatment. Heart and lungs seemed okay. Apparently, the cause of my distress was all high blood pressure. And they went to work to bring mine down to a safe level.

Which is why I was puzzled. Up until then, I had never had a problem with blood pressure. It had always been okay, well within limits. Only a couple of weeks earlier than this episode, I had gotten my annual home health visit from a nurse representing my insurance company. My blood pressure was, possibly on the high side of safe.

So how did it go crazy all at once? Has this happened to anyone else? I’m a newcomer to this.

Okay, my blood pressure was brought back into the atmosphere, so the next day I went to my regular clinic and was given a couple of shots and a couple of prescriptions. Also, under orders, I bought a blood pressure monitor – something I never thought I’d need.

As the days have gone by, my blood pressure is still high, but it’s coming down gradually, so I guess that’s good.

And I’ve started trying to pay more attention to what I eat. That’s something I’ve never really done before. I’ve always just eaten what I wanted and that was that. I admit, I was saddened when I realized that so many things I love are just chock-full of that dreaded, evil, demon of high blood pressure — sodium.

Alas. No more scarfing down half a large bag of potato chips in one sitting. In fact, maybe no chips at all, at least for a while. No more flour tortillas – I almost fainted when I saw how much you-know-what is in a large one. And, tragedy of tragedies, it seems that my beloved pizza is one of the worst offenders, if not the worst.

The salt shaker thinks I’ve died or moved away. And I look for “low sodium” this or “salt free” that when I’m shopping.

Not all is lost, I can still have an egg, and I’ve learned that an egg is edible without salt. Luckily, Alice and I like mushrooms – I can eat all of those I want. Likewise dried beans, which we both like, as long as I don’t fancy them up too much.

One thing I’ve come to realize. Some might think it’s possible to actually cut out too much sodium. I don’t think so. There is so much of the stuff in practically everything we eat, even if it’s reduced, that I think most of us are getting all we need — at the very least. It’s so prevalent, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in the air, being absorbed by all of us as we go about our hypertensive lives.

When you come right down to it, after that scare – and believe me, I was scared – I’m glad it wasn’t a heart attack after all. And I’m going to try to be good; that trip to the ER was not a lot of fun, though I’m glad it was there when I needed it. There are still a few things I can eat. And who knows, some day I might be able to indulge in half a low-sodium tater chip. You never know.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: David Nichol is a freelance writer who retired from the Times-Herald. He can be contacted at nicholdb@cablelynx.com.)