I just need to vent a bit. This has nothing to do with you, or with Rovers, it's just that the new NAS-ROW looks so good, I've got to abuse the privilege and go on a personal rant.
I'm 44 years old. I am a high school history teacher. Yes, I do work about 10-12 hours a day, plus weekends. It isn't myth, but we get paid well, and we get our summers off! So I call it a semi-desk job. I keep active, but I have not been very good at actually exercising most of the last 20 years. I typically run a bit in the summer, but get tired of it once the time change hits, and it's dark, cold, and wet by the time I get home. Mostly, I just don't have the time. This summer I finally made it from Spring Break all the way to September, running just about every other day, sometimes more. I managed to go from 11 minutes per mile to 8 minutes per mile for 6 miles at a time. So.... I still suck, but at least I feel good. I haven't done much for the past three months. So now I'm 170 lbs, and 'normal' but not 'in shape'. Anyway, this is all background.
In high school, when I thought I was invincible, I remember getting odd feelings about the way my heart would act sometimes. But it never affected me. However, about 5 years ago, I was suddenly hit with a set of several 'incidents' where I came close to fainting due to sudden heart fluttering and a rushing beat for no reason. It often happened while I was trying to sleep, and that really sucks. I went through a battery of tests, and the cardiologist basically told me that it is a "common" thing; some kind of blend of tachycardia and arrhythmia, but that nothing could really be done until it gets so bad that they could really pin-point a cause. He said I wasn't going to die of this, yet. Heart monitor for a month. and a half-dose of a beta-blocker per day.
I don't remember exactly how long, but after cutting out 70% of my caffeine, and dropping alcohol for a while. (The coffee was the real culprit.) And then being fairly consistent with exercise, or at least cutting down trees as much as I could, the problem really went away--until Tuesday evening three weeks ago. On that day, I had a sudden 'attack' and then another, and another, and another. In the past, they would hit hard, then go away. By the time I got to the hospital, I almost needed a wheelchair. It took a good 6 hours for it to stop, and then for me to recover.
It is a very strange thing. I often get an indescribable feeling out of nowhere, for no reason, that it is coming, then it hits, and I nearly go down for about 10-15 seconds. Then I go into a phase where my body feels like it's been beat up. Odd feelings, in arms and legs, neck, etc... And after about half an hour, I suddenly "recover" and feel normal. I could describe it like getting minor cramps all over, or like feeling like the arm or leg is going numb (but it never does) or like wearing a pair of tight socks, or a too tight t-shirt. And my heart often beats at 120+ for no reason. Or it just feels completely out of control, the way your stomach feels just before you have a bad case of diarrhea.... yeah.... The real problem is that for the last three weeks I've had only two days where I didn't, at some point during the day, suddenly feel like I'm dying.
Which leads to the reason I'm venting. I told you all of that just to be able to vent now.
Basically, it sucks. I thought I would get to 80 years old before feeling like I'm 80 years old. I know this isn't true, but it feels like my life is basically done now. Like however much time I have left really will just be spent in a state of exhausted sedintary existence. Even if I don't die, what the hell am I going to do now? I don't feel safe going out on my own. Camping? What? I could decide to just screw it and go all out till I do keel-over, but I've got two kids, that's not fair for them. I was finally (as of the last few months) coming to the point in my life where I could actually afford to overland the vehicle I've been building in my mind since that night in 1995, when I came upon a Camel Trophy 110, the only other vehicle heading north on I-5 through central California at 2:00 in the morning. And I had just started flying again after purposefully staying away from it for 20 years to build a life and family instead. And I look around and I see loads of people who are overweight, don't eat right, never exercise, are 10-15 years older than me, and I'm now really, honestly jealous of them. How do they do it? How do they even walk around with so much energy? Heart problem aside, if I so much as eat three big meals in a row, I feel like just giving up the ghost. No. Really, what's the secret?
OK, rant over. I just had to get that out to someone besides my pour wife. Sorry it had to be you. I need to refocus on what's important in life, and a bit of a rant helps because it calls me out on my piss-pour-pity-party for the snowflake that I am. And just so you know, since it isn't going away, and since it is causing me to have to leave work in the middle of the day, etc... I'm going to request another heart monitor, and maybe another set of tests. I'm already back on my prescription, but it seems to lower my blood pressure too much. In other words, I need to wrap my head around the fact that I need to get on living with it, because the one thing everyone tells me is that it isn't going to get better.
And now for a few questions, just in case working on Rovers is anything like working on your health:
Do any of you have this type of condition?
Have you noticed that indigestion triggers it?
What have you done to try to have a normal life in spite of the condition?
Were you like my dad, who got it cured in one simple procedure?
What did they need to do to be able to pin-point the problem?
What questions did you ask your cardiologist at this point?
What else you got?
Thanks,
I'm 44 years old. I am a high school history teacher. Yes, I do work about 10-12 hours a day, plus weekends. It isn't myth, but we get paid well, and we get our summers off! So I call it a semi-desk job. I keep active, but I have not been very good at actually exercising most of the last 20 years. I typically run a bit in the summer, but get tired of it once the time change hits, and it's dark, cold, and wet by the time I get home. Mostly, I just don't have the time. This summer I finally made it from Spring Break all the way to September, running just about every other day, sometimes more. I managed to go from 11 minutes per mile to 8 minutes per mile for 6 miles at a time. So.... I still suck, but at least I feel good. I haven't done much for the past three months. So now I'm 170 lbs, and 'normal' but not 'in shape'. Anyway, this is all background.
In high school, when I thought I was invincible, I remember getting odd feelings about the way my heart would act sometimes. But it never affected me. However, about 5 years ago, I was suddenly hit with a set of several 'incidents' where I came close to fainting due to sudden heart fluttering and a rushing beat for no reason. It often happened while I was trying to sleep, and that really sucks. I went through a battery of tests, and the cardiologist basically told me that it is a "common" thing; some kind of blend of tachycardia and arrhythmia, but that nothing could really be done until it gets so bad that they could really pin-point a cause. He said I wasn't going to die of this, yet. Heart monitor for a month. and a half-dose of a beta-blocker per day.
I don't remember exactly how long, but after cutting out 70% of my caffeine, and dropping alcohol for a while. (The coffee was the real culprit.) And then being fairly consistent with exercise, or at least cutting down trees as much as I could, the problem really went away--until Tuesday evening three weeks ago. On that day, I had a sudden 'attack' and then another, and another, and another. In the past, they would hit hard, then go away. By the time I got to the hospital, I almost needed a wheelchair. It took a good 6 hours for it to stop, and then for me to recover.
It is a very strange thing. I often get an indescribable feeling out of nowhere, for no reason, that it is coming, then it hits, and I nearly go down for about 10-15 seconds. Then I go into a phase where my body feels like it's been beat up. Odd feelings, in arms and legs, neck, etc... And after about half an hour, I suddenly "recover" and feel normal. I could describe it like getting minor cramps all over, or like feeling like the arm or leg is going numb (but it never does) or like wearing a pair of tight socks, or a too tight t-shirt. And my heart often beats at 120+ for no reason. Or it just feels completely out of control, the way your stomach feels just before you have a bad case of diarrhea.... yeah.... The real problem is that for the last three weeks I've had only two days where I didn't, at some point during the day, suddenly feel like I'm dying.
Which leads to the reason I'm venting. I told you all of that just to be able to vent now.
Basically, it sucks. I thought I would get to 80 years old before feeling like I'm 80 years old. I know this isn't true, but it feels like my life is basically done now. Like however much time I have left really will just be spent in a state of exhausted sedintary existence. Even if I don't die, what the hell am I going to do now? I don't feel safe going out on my own. Camping? What? I could decide to just screw it and go all out till I do keel-over, but I've got two kids, that's not fair for them. I was finally (as of the last few months) coming to the point in my life where I could actually afford to overland the vehicle I've been building in my mind since that night in 1995, when I came upon a Camel Trophy 110, the only other vehicle heading north on I-5 through central California at 2:00 in the morning. And I had just started flying again after purposefully staying away from it for 20 years to build a life and family instead. And I look around and I see loads of people who are overweight, don't eat right, never exercise, are 10-15 years older than me, and I'm now really, honestly jealous of them. How do they do it? How do they even walk around with so much energy? Heart problem aside, if I so much as eat three big meals in a row, I feel like just giving up the ghost. No. Really, what's the secret?
OK, rant over. I just had to get that out to someone besides my pour wife. Sorry it had to be you. I need to refocus on what's important in life, and a bit of a rant helps because it calls me out on my piss-pour-pity-party for the snowflake that I am. And just so you know, since it isn't going away, and since it is causing me to have to leave work in the middle of the day, etc... I'm going to request another heart monitor, and maybe another set of tests. I'm already back on my prescription, but it seems to lower my blood pressure too much. In other words, I need to wrap my head around the fact that I need to get on living with it, because the one thing everyone tells me is that it isn't going to get better.
And now for a few questions, just in case working on Rovers is anything like working on your health:
Do any of you have this type of condition?
Have you noticed that indigestion triggers it?
What have you done to try to have a normal life in spite of the condition?
Were you like my dad, who got it cured in one simple procedure?
What did they need to do to be able to pin-point the problem?
What questions did you ask your cardiologist at this point?
What else you got?
Thanks,