Tag: atrial fibrillation

Is Spring actually springing?

Snowdrops in Sidney Gardens

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
not too far said she
what’s too far said he
where you are said she)

ee cummings – May I feel said he

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.

Stale yeast – bad news!

This could be a bit of a shaggy dog story so I’ll keep it short. On Thursday last the steam oven packed up; not just no steam but no oven at all. The engineer can’t make it until Monday afternoon, but that’s just the beginning because he’ll have to order the parts and we could be without our main oven for ten days. But all’s not lost because we have a combination oven/grill/microwave and we also have a very elderly bread machine. Over the years I’ve tried every idea in the book for ways of making steam including saucers of water and wet bricks but none come close to the real thing.

So no sourdough for maybe ten days and yesterday I fetched out the jar of dried yeast and made a quick machine loaf – the resultant brick on the right was the clearest sign that the yeast had effectively died – it doesn’t last forever and I bought a kilo of the only yeast available in the panic days of the first lockdown. This morning I bought new yeast and the difference is clear – which doesn’t mean the bread machine is anything other than a quick work around in an emergency. I know without even cutting a slice that it will be fluffy and tasteless, but it makes half decent toast. The shame is that we’re right in the middle of processing tomatoes and this will limit our capacity.

Our neighbour on the allotment has just lost much of her tomato crop to blight. When we get a wet spell like the one we’ve been enduring here, it’s only a matter of days before blight appears and it’s a tragedy. This has been a truly weird season and it’s impossible to believe that the cause is anything but the oncoming climate catastrophe. Food security is one aspect of the crisis that’s not mentioned nearly enough.

But I’m also more directly affected by air pollution than most because I’m asthmatic. It was never a problem until we moved to Bath, but the air here can be so poor that I could barely walk to the surgery. One of the health factors that is affected particularly by microscopic particles is atrial fibrillation which, for me has intensified from occasional to continuous, and the polluting particles aren’t just from the burning of diesel fuel. Very heavy vehicles like diesel SUV’s obviously emit copious amounts, but it’s also been demonstrated that because electric vehicles are so much heavier they emit more particles from tyres and brakes. Children are ten times more likely to be killed or seriously injured if struck by SUV’s as opposed to smaller cars. When children – more often poor children are exposed to pollution their lungs never grow properly. I mention this because Bath is infested with these giant vehicles, often carrying just one driver. So the argument that ULEZ and 20mph speed limits are restricting some kind of human right is so obviously wrong that continuing to advance it is the exact equivalent to promoting cigarette smoking among children. Who stands to gain from this? Big oil, and car manufacturers, that’s who.

I remember the headline from a column in the Daily Mirror when I was a child, written by William Connor whose ferocious articles appeared under his pen name Cassandra. It was “This Septic Isle”. What goes around comes around!

More tea Vicar?

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So yesterday, being rather wet, was a day for writing and catching up with friends, and that meant plentiful quantities of tea and coffee.  I’ve always loved tea – black tea, builders tea – the stronger the better. The worst cup I ever drank was in the course of a visit when I was offered a cup from an aluminium pot – still boiling on the stove after what could have been hours. On being asked if I wanted milk and sugar I was offered a can of condensed sweetened milk with a half submerged teaspoon in it. I swear my teeth were chattering by the time I finished it –  but I did finish it.

I once counted how many cups I was drinking in a day and it was more than I dare confess, but it never seemed to have any adverse effects and I would happily drink a mug of tea at bedtime and still sleep well. Actually that last sentence should be qualified to say that I didn’t actually sleep any worse than usual. Restless, dream infested nights were my metier as Madame will testify. When it became possible to make decent coffee at home I started drinking espressos in the intervals between mugs of tea – and made it much worse by buying a huge teapot – big enough for an extended family party – and emptying it slowly as the brew became ever stronger. Yesterday I discovered that my caffeine consumption might be a bit of a problem ….

First off there were the usual 2 mugs in bed, followed by a double espresso while I did a bit of reading. Then I started on the green tea which (I thought) was very low in caffeine.  Not, however, when it’s been steeping for half an hour. More black tea. Off then to meet up with friends at Waterstones (2 more strong coffees) and then back home (2 more mugs of builders’).

Then I had a dizzy turn.  I’m very used to dizzy turns – hah!

Ever …….so …….. slowly …… the notion began to seep into my stupid mind that my AF attacks could be linked to something more than stress – and goodness knows it’s been stressful watching our political system implode for the last three years. But could it also my ridiculous caffeine consumption? and so I quickly drank three glasses of water and the weird feeling subsided.    Not evidence I agree, but a sledgehammer of a hint.

Blogging usually means putting your best foot forwards and making your life look like a paradise of virtue, uninterrupted bliss and an example for all to follow. Not the Potwell Inn!  I’m happy to share the screw-ups as well as the successes, because human flourishing has to take place in the weather of events, misunderstandings, resistances and sheer doltish stupidity. I made a small start this morning with just one mug of builders’ tea and then spreading single small cups of green tea out for the rest of the morning. After about 5.00pm I’ll turn to chamomile tea, and I’m giving up the espressos for a while just to see what happens. The problem is that it’s so easy to normalize our everyday behaviour that we (I) don’t ask the right questions and, ‘though we might not be making ourselves exactly ill, we push ourselves into that grey area between thriving and ‘just doing OK’. 

We were supposed to be camping in the Forest of Dean for a couple of nights, returning today – but the weather has been so relentlessly cold and wet we cried off. Earlier today we went down to the polling station to vote.  There were crowds of young people passing through – which left us hopeful for the results tomorrow. I long to tell the crooked rose that our age is no longer bent by the wintry fever of austerity.