An Official ISB
I am sending an ISB out to everyone in Bloggerland. What does an “ISB” mean? It means “I’m Still Breathing.” I could have sent out an INW (“I’m Not Writing”), but I think everyone knew that. However, I am still breathing and my heart is still beating. Hooray for my lungs and heart! I love those guys! For you people without lungs or a heart, you do not know what you’re missing.
I’ve been pretty busy, trying to focus on the old job a bit more and having plenty of things to do on the weekends both work-related and pleasure-related. Rest assured I am not gathering any moss, my friends, no sir, not me: no moss-gatherer am I.
The only thing of interest I can think of reporting was an echocardiogram I had done on me a few weeks ago. One of my doctors thought I had high blood pressure, but couldn’t be sure because of “white smock syndrome,” meaning that when I’m placed in a medical setting I get as nervous as a shaved chihuahua on a cake of ice. The instant the technician puts that blood pressure cuff on me, all I can think is, “don’t have high blood pressure don’t have high blood pressure I’m gonna die if I do!” And when they tell me to think of something relaxing, what I think is: “Relax! Relax! Do you want to die? RELAX goddammit!”
Anyway, the echocardiogram was done to measure the thickness of my heart wall. A thick heart wall means you have high blood pressure. What happens is, they do an ultrasound of various parts of your heart, snap pictures of it, and send the shots off to the cardiologist. The cardiologist then reviews them, rubs his chin pensively and sagely says, “Yep, that’s a heart.” My heart, as it turns out, was completely normal. I got a clean bill of health, which made me breathe a little easier, soooo, once again: hooray for my lungs and heart!
Apparently I’m borderline hypertensive but not enough to prescribe medication. Telling the doctor about all those miles I log in on the bike made an impression I think, along with my not being overweight, a virtual teetotaler, and a nonsmoking, non-drug abusing, fish-eating quasi-vegetarian. My pulse while sleeping is 35 beats per minute, which is quite slow and an indication of being in good shape. However, one thing I am trying to correct is my sodium intake. For all my life I have been an inveterate junk food junkie and I like to sprinkle salt on everything. One book I recently bought on how to reduce your blood pressure without medication advises people like me to cut way, way down on sodium and consume foods with a high “K-factor,” meaning those foods that have a hell of a lot more potassium than sodium. Fruits are really good for that, especially bananas, apples and oranges. So now I’m chomping on fruit, rice cakes, and unsalted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on matzo bread instead of Doritos and Pringles. Mmmmmm, yum! Who says you need taste? Remember: food is merely fuel to stay alive.
Well, that’s it for today. Thanks for dropping by.
I’ve been pretty busy, trying to focus on the old job a bit more and having plenty of things to do on the weekends both work-related and pleasure-related. Rest assured I am not gathering any moss, my friends, no sir, not me: no moss-gatherer am I.
The only thing of interest I can think of reporting was an echocardiogram I had done on me a few weeks ago. One of my doctors thought I had high blood pressure, but couldn’t be sure because of “white smock syndrome,” meaning that when I’m placed in a medical setting I get as nervous as a shaved chihuahua on a cake of ice. The instant the technician puts that blood pressure cuff on me, all I can think is, “don’t have high blood pressure don’t have high blood pressure I’m gonna die if I do!” And when they tell me to think of something relaxing, what I think is: “Relax! Relax! Do you want to die? RELAX goddammit!”
Anyway, the echocardiogram was done to measure the thickness of my heart wall. A thick heart wall means you have high blood pressure. What happens is, they do an ultrasound of various parts of your heart, snap pictures of it, and send the shots off to the cardiologist. The cardiologist then reviews them, rubs his chin pensively and sagely says, “Yep, that’s a heart.” My heart, as it turns out, was completely normal. I got a clean bill of health, which made me breathe a little easier, soooo, once again: hooray for my lungs and heart!
Apparently I’m borderline hypertensive but not enough to prescribe medication. Telling the doctor about all those miles I log in on the bike made an impression I think, along with my not being overweight, a virtual teetotaler, and a nonsmoking, non-drug abusing, fish-eating quasi-vegetarian. My pulse while sleeping is 35 beats per minute, which is quite slow and an indication of being in good shape. However, one thing I am trying to correct is my sodium intake. For all my life I have been an inveterate junk food junkie and I like to sprinkle salt on everything. One book I recently bought on how to reduce your blood pressure without medication advises people like me to cut way, way down on sodium and consume foods with a high “K-factor,” meaning those foods that have a hell of a lot more potassium than sodium. Fruits are really good for that, especially bananas, apples and oranges. So now I’m chomping on fruit, rice cakes, and unsalted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on matzo bread instead of Doritos and Pringles. Mmmmmm, yum! Who says you need taste? Remember: food is merely fuel to stay alive.
Well, that’s it for today. Thanks for dropping by.
posted by mr. schprock at 10:55 AM
14 Comments:
I can't imagine bleakness that must be an unsalted peanut butter. There are some things worse than death. I think that qualifies.
But try and stick around for a while longer, mm'kay? I'd appreciate it.
Hrm, unsalted peanut butter... I'm not sure I could do that.
However, lately, I have been doing organic non-fat plain yogurt with fresh blueberries...which makes Mr.T want to hurl.
Good luck with the sodium reduction, and maybe tell Mr.T that he should be on that train too!
It might sound good if you *only* have to watch your sodium intake. Those junk foods do not worth much, anyway. Now you have reason #5878971 to keep them away from you.
"I get as nervous as a shaved chihuahua on a cake of ice."
Where do you come up with these? Chihuahuas don't need to be on a cake of ice to be nervous. Nor do they need to be shaved.
And we're American. We bastardize spellings of all sorts of things. Why don't we just spell it "chewawa" and get it over with, already? With its correct spelling I keep wanting to say "chee-HOO-a-HOO-a." That ought to make a dog nervous.
Mrs. Farrago is currently trying on the vegan lifestyle after recenty completing a "cleansing fast," where she basically stopped her intake of solid food and replaced it with water, laxative tea, and some sort of lemon juice cocktail for 10 days, a period of time during which she gleefully described to me the ever-liquefying composition of her bowel movements.
Maybe you should try that, Schprockie! Mrs. Schprock and the Schprocklets oughta enjoy hearing about that. And so would your readers!
I'm very glad to hear you're still breathing. I'm thinking that if you cut out adding salt to everything, that you wouldn't need to resort to salt-free PB, but I'm not the doctor, so you just keep on keeping on.
I'm not a fan of salt, and I have low blood pressure.
Not to me. Food is a pleasure. If it were just fuel, we wouldn't have all those taste buds.
I'm so glad you have a clean bill of health.
I don't consume a lot of salt, and only use it while cooking.
However, unsalted peanut butter is ghastly.
Please reconsider this atrocity, and find another way to reduce your intake.
Hooray for hearts and lungs!
Unsalted peanut butter on matzho. Um, ick. Big ick. Can you at last wash that down with some ice-cold beers?
Oh, riiiiight. You're not much of a drinker. Now might be a good time to start.
Also - yay for the post and the ketchup....catch up. No salt.
If you've got to give up salt...
How can life be worth living?
Holy cow, I just lmbo after reading what LL wrote to you. Just read your entry today over at the contest. Very good!
Is this sort of like DSB, what one gets as a single guy getting no action? Extra credit if you know what the acronym stands for. I saw that you entered the Halo contest. I'll check it out when I get the chance. I'm leaving on a jet plane but I know when I'll be back again. Friday night. Late.
Glad to know your organs are still functioning without the aid of machines. Now I won't have to Google you.
Just so you know, eating healthy makes you live longer. But if you can't eat all the good stuff, who would want to?
Love the chihuahua analogy! Great visual. Dean gets the same way, so he goes to the grocery store and takes his own blood pressure before an appointment to report back to the doctors. Yay for heart and lungs! But don't boast too much or the Tin Man will get jealous.
On this ISB thing, I just came back to your blog and immediately started singing "Enough is Enough" by Donna Summer. Come back to us. =)
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