Staying the Course Feb 12-16

Valve Replacement Forums

Help Support Valve Replacement Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

rich01

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 23, 2018
Messages
423
Location
Virginia US
I'll start one for the rest of this week.

I had an interesting dr appointment. For the 1st time, someone actually listened to what I told them and agreed I was right not to take the med they had prescribed. I have a weird BP problem where it is normal for weeks at a time and then suddenly shoots up very high dragging my heart rate with it. It lasts from a few hours to a day and then returns to normal. I know from experience that no drug has ever brought it back down, although nitro glycerine may have 1 time. It's hard to tell because it comes down as fast as it goes up.

I took my records from the last month with me that showed BP being normal day after day and then shooting up. I had gone in for ekg last time it happened and within 2 hours of leaving the dr's office, BP was back to normal. Anyway, the nurse looked it over and said my BP was excellent, except for those spikes. She called doc at hospital and he agreed I didn't need to take the beta blocker.

I also had an important revelation. Sometimes when my heart rate increases, I can feel the valve opening and closing. I kept thinking there was something wrong with the valve. Then it dawned on me, it was just different. The fact that the new valve doesn't feel exactly like my natural valve is something I wished the doctor had told me. I had these BP spikes and HR spikes before I had the new valve, so it is not related to the new valve, just I notice it more now.

So I think I have adjusted to life with the new valve and don't think every little chest pain is a heart attack! Sometimes it's just from raking leaves for 3 hours!
 
Long time no post. Happy Valentines Day! Hope everyone can relax and enjoy and keep expectations realistic!

Good read, rich01. Nobody can tell you how you feel. Sometimes Drs have to be the smartest person in the room, so they almost by default think the patient is wrong. Great that you found someone to listen and respect your data.

As for me, I caught a bit of a photography bug after the holidays. The little spare time I have has been consumed with reading about shutter speed, aperture, iso, depth of field, focus, you name it.

2020 is a year of awesome travels so we want to be able to capture our memories as best we can. We spent some coin on a Canon EOS RP and a couple of lenses (RF 35mm f1.8 macro and an RF 24mm - 240 mm f4 - f6.3 Zoom). With their holiday specials, we even got a pro grade Canon printer basically free (instant rebate plus mail in rebate for a gift card covered the whole cost). I’ve been practicing and can take a pretty decent picture “blind” right now by just looking at my numbers and histogram and no viewfinder. That was fun to practice. Doesn’t get the framing right, but I found it a helpful exercise.

Im eager to get outside and do some serious practice, but it’s 5 degrees right now. Oh well. Heading to Disney World at the end of the month. We’ll get plenty of practice there!

Hope everyone’s courses are going well!
 
887311
887312

Shrunk way down for forum size, but a couple practice shots for fun. Nothing too crazy. Out the back step at sunrise and a macro of a flower that was slowly blooming.
 
I haven't posted in a while, nothing exciting going on here.
Weight is slowly going down now. Only 10 more pound to lose. Just eating less when I think of it. I used to run very long distances. Now that I don't I think my metabolism has slowed way down.
I'm still walking some and trying to run but it's hard to do more than a mile of running at the start. Will keep working on it. There are two 5K races coming up and I want to run more than walk.
My wife planned a trip this summer to hike the Narrows in Utah. That should be awesome. Then a day at Bryce Canyon.
Hope all the Coursers are doing well. Hi SB!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top