The heart of the matter

I have old lady knees. Also old lady eyes. I do old lady-type crafts and have old lady habits.

So it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that my heart isn’t all that spry.

I’ve been dragging my old lady ass to the doctor on and off for the last few years to refill prescriptions and get the occasional testing of the lady parts. They started monitoring my blood pressure as one time it read as a bit high, so they put a note in my file to check it whenever I came it.

With my doctor on mat leave, it fell to a nurse practioner and the walk-in doc to finally send me for an ECG and order me to start walking and cut out salt and drop some weight otherwise I’d be going on meds.

OK, fine. I started walking for 30 minutes five times a week, I reduced my salt intake, and since I was already working on losing weight to take the pressure off the aforementioned old lady knees, I just kept going with it.

I figured, I’ve done all the things a medical professional said I should do, it should go down right? Of course it will. I’m 36, this shouldn’t even be an issue.

Oh, except it is.

The ECG came back with a regular heart rhythm (yay) but a dialted left chamber (uh, what?).

See, only the bottom (diastolic) number was high, the top (systolic) number was usually within a normal range.

Again, uh, what?

How does that even work?

Apparently it’s not super common, and it has a big name (dialted cardiomyopathy), is more common in men, and can be caused by obesity, alcoholism, thyroid disease, diabetes, and doing an excessive amount of cocaine.

I really need to cut back on the *cocaine.

So since the doctor doesn’t know what is causing this condition for me, we’re playing the elimination game to try and find out.

I’m switching my birth control from the pill that has two hormones to an IUD that only has one. I’m taking off weight for both my knees and my heart now (down 15 pounds, yay me), I’m still going for walks and cutting back on the salt. I’ve also been put on water pills to try and lower my blood pressure in the meantime. Day one on those had me peeing every 45 minutes… I lost two pounds just from peeing.

I went for another ECG and blood work yesterday, have my IUD appointment next month, and will likely have a follow-up regarding the testing at some point.

Can I just say that this is kinda bullshit?

I’m 36, I’m not even at the mid-life crisis point of my existence…like what the actual fuck nonsense is this?!?

Anyway…

I’m gonna go back to my old lady crocheting because I’m pretty sure that’s one of the only things keeping me chill at this point.

To end this post on a high note, look at this super cute bunny stuffie I got myself for Easter instead of a chocolate bunny:

-A.

*This is totally a joke, I don’t do cocaine. Please don’t think I’m on cocaine.

In defence of adults with teddy bears

A friend on Facebook shared a little image that got me thinking.

The image is a cartoon by Peter Chiykowski of RockPaperCynic.com. It’s called In Defense of Teddy Bears.

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This spoke to me for a number of reasons, mostly for the fact that I’ve always had a teddy bear or some sort of stuffed animal with me.

I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I was diagnosed about 4 years ago, but hindsight being 20/20, I can safely say I’ve had it my whole life. Even before I had a name for my condition, I’d always found that soft cuddly things, like stuffed animals, helped calm me down. This might be why I have such a massive collection of stuffies.

I’ve always preferred stuffed animals to most other toys, partially because they can be hugged and squished without worry they’ll be damaged or broken.

I remember reading in a Cosmo article (back when I actually gave weight to the garbage in that mag) that after a certain age, a woman needs to send those stuffies to Goodwill because a REAL LIVE ADULT WOMAN wouldn’t have such things around their home. So, being young and stupid and trying to figure out how to adult in this world, I shoved most of the stuffies I had out of sight so I could be a REAL LIVE ADULT WOMAN.

Now that I’m well into my 30s, I realize just how ridiculous that advice was. It’s amazing how much clarity you gain once you pass the age of 29. There’s stuffies on the bookshelves in my living room, out in the open when people can see them. Do I care that some might think that childish? No, fuck those people! You don’t need that shit like that in your life!

The fact is, I need a stuffed animal with me. It doesn’t make me weak and less of a REAL LIVE ADULT WOMAN to have one. It’s part of how I’m able to survive in this world.

When I’m on little road trips or on a plane and there’s the potential for an increase in anxiety, I bring this little guy with me:

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I call him Coo.

He’s a Highland cow that I got in Scotland 10 years ago. He’s small and easily concealed—there are definitely situations when a stuffie doesn’t need to be out in the open, so he’s a good one to have.

And then there’s the situation I find myself these days: I live on site in a remote location where I’m the only woman for miles, surrounded by men with no proper locks on the doors to my living space.

Guess what? Sometimes I wonder if I’m truly safe, and that makes me anxious. So I have two stuffies with me out here.

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The panda bear I picked up at an Alice Cooper concert of all places a few years back, and the bunny has a Scentsy pack that smells like watermelon.

Like the comic says, a teddy bear, or a bunny, or a little cow will “make you remember how to be a person.” I feel more like a person with these stuffies nearby, knowing that I can put all that fear and anxiety in them and they’ll still be there the next time. We all need coping mechanisms, so who cares if that’s in the form of an animal that you keep on your bed or your couch?

We can still be REAL LIVE ADULTS and have a teddy bear.

-A.