I checked on the Potwell Inn stats a couple of days ago and I found that my writing output took a real dive after August last year and has only just begun to pick up again in the last couple of weeks. I know exactly how this happened and a quick look at the diary confirmed it, because that was when I had all my heart medications changed after an echo scan, which kicked off a load of side effects that made me feel really – and I mean really under the weather, much more than the original reason for seeing the GP. I’d had what’s called Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation for years – it’s pretty common and as long as it’s managed properly it’s not especially dangerous. The Paroxysmal bit means that it doesn’t happen all the time and the GP had warned me that the usual course of the complaint means that the frequency slowly increases until the episodes pretty well join together and your heart is beating irregularly all the time – which can make you feel a bit odd; light headed and wobbly.
I’d always kidded myself that a heart rate of 190 while I was climbing, or in the gym, was a rather positive sign that I could really put my foot hard on the floor and get away with it. That’s until we watched a 24 hours in A&E episode in which a woman was taken off to hospital in an ambulance for having a heart rate of – I think -154. Cue, or should that be queue for an appointment with the GP.
Anyway, to cut a long story down a bit , it was all taken rather seriously and after some scans I was given some medication and told – for the very first time – not to overdo it. The penalty, I was told, was the high risk of a stroke or a heart attack. But hours on Google and in conversations at the gym and with a GP neighbour on the allotment who, when I asked him if I’d ever be able to stop the medication replied “only if you want to die!” ; no-one was prepared to specify what exactly overdoing it means. It all reminded me of a verse from a poem by ee cummings –
(let’s go said he
ee cummings – May I feel said he
not too far said she
what’s too far said he
where you are said she)
I largely managed to put the whole boring diagnosis out of my mind; but to be honest, working flat out on the rowing machine – my favourite activity in the gym – now always led to one anxious eye on the heart rate monitor which often obliged me with some randomly threatening results. Then came the COVID lockdown and the gym was closed for months so I took to weights and floor exercises at home.
The GP was right of course and I finished up with constant AF and some noisy heart valves. Hence the new medication that didn’t stop the AF but slowed my pulse quite a bit, dropped my blood pressure and made me feel ill. That all started in August when the Potwell Inn work-rate fell. Our GP pharmacist was brilliant and we agreed that I’d put up with feeling absolutely rubbish and give the new medication time to bed in – which slowly made things better until we got COVID for the second time and then I really did take a dive. This new variant left me completely exhausted, often breathless, dizzy and with no appetite. “There goes Christmas”, I thought.
And then I slowly felt better. During our week in Cornwall I discovered that I could still walk up some pretty steep coastal paths without having to stop and catch my breath every 20 yards. It was all a matter of overcoming the anxiety and pacing myself. This week we reinstated the 10,000 step walk that we invented during the lockdown and it was OK. I could hardly believe, it but apart from a bit of understandable stiffness I felt back to normal. I even – and I haven’t even confessed this to Madame yet – I even thought about a gentle rowing session at the gym. After all, apart from killing myself what could go wrong? More seriously, after decades of refusing to act my age, I think I’ve cracked it. I should act my age, control the anxiety and not overdo it, after all death is God’s way of telling you to slow down, so I need to keep my feet off the throttle and not worry too much about being the oldest person in the place.
Being fit; being able to do things is a truly precious feeling and it makes me feel confident and happy. The hospital consultant cheerfully told me on my last visit that he could pass a minute soldering iron down one of my arteries and burn out some of the extra nerve endings whose random firings are the ultimate cause of all the bother; or they could still fit a pacemaker; so I’m not nearly done yet.
And has Spring sprung? and is the grass riz? As the ninth named storm crashes over us in the season since September, the plants seem determined not to let the wet winter, the frozen spring and now more torrential rain and wind get them down’ and neither shall I.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
Friedrich Nietzsche 1888.
