a trip to the doc

“I have an M.D. from Harvard, I am board certified in cardio-thoracic medicine and trauma surgery, I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England, and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you; when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trama from postoperative shock, who do you think they're praying to? Now, go ahead and read your Bible, _Dennis_, and you go to your church, and, with any luck, you might win the annual raffle, but if you're looking for God, he was in operating room number two on November 17, and he doesn't like to be second guessed. You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God.”  Jed (Alec Baldwin), Malice

How many times have I been sitting here?  How many times in this exact office, waiting for the exact same results?  Since I first saw the doctor I can’t remember.  In the last six years at least twice a year, like clockwork.  I dig Dr. Cameron.  He is good people.  He brings a very holistic approach to western medicine.  As a man of KA, I cannot ask for more. 

I believe not only in the magical healing power of laughter but also the magical healing power of the body and the mind.  You have to want to get better.  You have to bring the mind and body into unity.  I really believe this. 

So I am sitting there waiting for the doctor.  My chest is tightening.  Looking at my feet as they dangle off the table and wondering how did we get here again?  How did we get to a place where I am sitting here waiting to be told if my heart is going to make it or not?  The only real difference is I am 10 lbs heavier now.  Oh and well before my hair didn’t hang down to my lips.  It is really a curious feeling for me.  My hair is longer than it has ever been.  It is soft too.  Really soft, so when I feel it on my face it is strange.  I am not use to it. 

I sit here and say nothing is really change and don’t know in my heart that is a lie?  I mean if sat here and told you everything was the same, I would be a liar.  Everything is not the same, it never will be again.  The world has moved on, and slowly but surely I have to move on with it.    I don’t have a choice. 

They lady sat me down and took my blood pressure. I was scared.  I have felt so out of it, I was sure my blood pressure was sky high.  I mean let’s do the list right now.  I have had headaches, a short temper, shortness of breath, and pain in the left side of my chest, and just about everything else that screams hyper tension.  So when the lady told me that my blood pressure was 112/70 I think I shit myself.  Really, I think might have.  I was shocked.  I couldn’t believe my BP was that good, I am not sure it has ever been that good?  I told her to take it again because I didn’t believe her.  She did and we got the same reading. 

Next she had me lay back and we did the old familiar EKG.  I am pretty sure I have had an EKG every year since 2004 at least once if not twice.  Again the EKG reading came back looking normal.  She did it twice as well.  No heart attack over the weekend and not currently having one, so how do we explain the chest pain? 

She recommended that I go to see my cardiologist still to double check and I am like I can do that.  It is better to be safe than sorry.  I really just want to make sure my ticker is intact so that I can really focus on the movement. 

I think my issues are really a combination of GAS, yup that’s right, the ole GAS. Ok, so I really mean acid from acid reflux but gas is funnier.  Everyone loves a good fart joke.   Also, I think it is related to my depression and anxiety. 

Who are kidding if we don’t see that I am still really depressed?  I sat in the doctor’s office waiting for them with tears filling my eyes because I am 38 and I have had an EKG done every year for the last five or six years.  That’s fucked up man.  That makes me sad.  It creates the great vicious cycle of I eat because I am upset and I am upset when I eat.  I eat to feel something.  Feel something that I don’t currently get out of my life right now.

I sat there and fought the tears back as I thought about how anxious I have been.  I am anxious over the job I go to everyday.  I am anxious over trying to figure out how to save my life.  I am anxious because I am anxious.  I am anxious because I have trouble breathing.  I am anxious because I wake up in the middle of the night gasping for breath.  I am anxious.

The tears don’t fall.  They never do.  I need a good cry.  I think sometimes we all do.  Both of my blogs today have been shit.  How do you portray the emotion you feel sitting in a doctor’s office?  Sitting there because you have had 1,000 2^nd chances and you never took one.  That every time you go to the doctor they tell you’re ok; you just need to lose some pounds and let your ticker work a little less.  One day there won’t be a 2^nd chance.  One day you will go too far and you will fuck yourself.  Then the long good night kiss will set in.  You will finally put the finishing touches on a suicide note that you have been writing since you were 13. 

After all, isn’t that what I am doing?  Killing myself? How else do you explain it?  How else do you look out those 2^nd chances and not say, dude what the fuck are you doing. I mean don’t you know everyone loves you?  The worst part is my body feels crippled.  It hurts.  It hurts to sit it hurt to walk and sometimes it even hurts to lie down.  I know all of this and I also know that I have only myself to thank for that.  Obesity is not a disease.  It is a condition.  In my opinion it is a condition of the mind.  Each panic attack, each chest pain, and each time it is hard to do something I have myself to thank for it.   For the condition of my vessel is currently in.  It’s fucked.  I am fucked. 

I leave the doctor and then I text everyone who I think cares that my BP is good.   That I need to see the cardiologist, but things seem ok.  That I need to stay off the pepper flakes as it is making me reflux. 

I drive home and I still feel the pain in my chest.  Just had an EKG, I tell myself.  Not heart attack now. 

I keep driving.  I go straight to McDonald’s.  Yup, I did.  I was depressed and anxious.  So, I got a cup of Joe and only a cup of Joe and I go home.  EVERYTHING isn’t the same.    I do some dishes.  I play with puppy.  I pack my lunch.  Do you know I have not had fast food in two and a half weeks?  Three weeks come Friday mother fucker!  That’s right.  EVERYTHING isn’t the same.  I believe in the program Tyson has me on from a food perspective.  EVERYTHING isn’t the same.  I believe I am better today than I was yesterday.  Better than I was a year ago at this time. 

I think and I mean this, as I sat their debating on whether or not to call in and work from home.  Playing with puppy and thinking about changing out of my shorts and into my work close.  It hits me like a ton of bricks: EVERYTHING isn’t the same.  EVERYTHING isn’t the same and it isn’t the same because I know right now, that how I have lived my life doesn’t work.  I realized right then and there in my living room, that I had to change.  That Food Matters!  You have to put the right things into your body.  You can’t get healthy eating two half pound cheese burgers every night.  My way doesn’t work.  Pizza every other night and bagels for breakfast.  It just doesn’t fucking work. 

You have chosen a path and it is one of enlightenment.  To work every day on the only thing you can control: Yourself.  What did the post on facebook just face?  “New Month, New Goals, New You”

That is fucking right.  A new me because EVERYTHING isn’t the same this time, and you sat in the doctors off and knew it. I will do this.  I will come out on the other side of KA.  “New Month, New Goals, New You”

Yes a new me that is going to listen to the doctors this time.  A Billy b that is going to listen to people who know more about healthy eating and he is going to take their advice.   Not one who thinks if I just make the burgers myself or order a smaller pizza or a za without sticks that I will get better.  Heart, Mind, Body, or Soul it doesn’t matter, I choose to deal with it and make it right.      

Read my blogs.  Read about my last three weeks and tell me if I am the same man who I used to be?  But then again, I don’t really care what you think.  It is not for you to decide.  I am my own master now.  I choose to follow the path of the beam.  I choose the light over the dark.  And gods forbid the cardiologist come back with something or Dr Oba comes back with something, it doesn’t matter, we will face that down and beat it.  I will leave the death shroud of depression behind me. I will start moving again to reduce my anxiety. 

I will change my life.  I am changing my life.  I see the world as the beautiful place it is.  I want to live in it and enjoy it.  I will do this.  I am doing it now. 

Time to go out and rough the rain…