Saturday, March 28, 2015

I visit the doctor

I have been feeling po'rly these past couple of weeks.  Nothing specific, just sort of bleah.  Which partly accounts for my lack of blogging.  Stress from putting together my tax documents to send my accountant didn't help, nor did 6 mugs of strong coffee per day.  My taxes were not that difficult, it was just I was missing two receipts which I tried to download, one thing leading to another and Murphy was at his finest.

So last Friday Tanya took my blood pressure which was 160/85.  This is apparently not good. Since her blood pressure can go up and down like a toilet seat at a party, she had an ample supply of meds and gave me one of her "bring the pressure down quick" tablets.  Woke up next morning feeling much improved.

And drank only tea all day.  Did I mention that I can drink tea but no matter what you do with it it still tastes like tea.  I like Earl Grey sometimes but as Marx allegedly said "All proper tea is theft". for the next two days I allowed myself one cup of (instant) coffee.  BP 140/80.

Since I had not been to the doctor for a check-up for some time (like a long time), Tanya went to town Wednesday and got an appointment for Thursday, beginning at 8:00 am.  I was to take a specimen*, supplying my own jar.  I wanted to take a three litre jar but Tanya did not think they would see the humour.

This was no simple physical exam.  My doctor, Sergei Valentinovich, whom I knew from a previous problem, is a good guy and very thorough.  Tanya went with me to translate and more importantly to show me how to get to the different places.  It is not one stop shopping.  First I went to the old hospital which is many buildings on one campus, reeking for former Soviet times and a complete lack of maintenance since.  Much of it has been closed down and patients forced to travel to Dnipropetrovsk.

The Polyclinic waiting room was actually a hallway, freshly painted, clean and bright.  Tanya was given a list of stuff to buy from the dispensary.  First stop was for blood samples.  None of this vacuum tube stuff, it was an old fashioned syringe and dispensed into proper test tubes with  white-glued labels hand written on scraps of paper. BP 110/70.  YESSS!!!!

Next stop we walked over to the Cardio building for an ECG.  I lay down on what looked like the Bed of Procrustes but left in five minutes with my printout which was normal, no problems, according to the tech.  It was now  9:00 am.  Sergei Valentinovich was busy until 12:00 noon so we went for breakfast and I had two cups of coffee to celebrate

We were to meet him across the street from the old hospital at a new private clinic which looked much like any Canadian doctors' office.  While we waited they took more blood samples for tests that the old clinic couldn't do.  Complete with vacuum tubes and a band-aid over the puncture would when we were done.  Then Doc Sergei looked at my innards with a new and fancy ultrasound machine.  Non-invasive, thankfully.  I have experienced the other (and no, they didn't find my head up there then either).

Then the three of us walked back to his office in the old polyclinic for some meds which I am to take for a month then go back and see him.  My father in the last yers of his life took an eggcup full of pills every morning. None of them were real pharmaceuticals and all were self prescribed.  At the moment I am taking only one real med which I have for years but am almost up to half an eggcup full of other stuff that is supposed to be good for my aging plumbing and I doubt it will do me any harm.. It is all "herbal" which Europeans are much more fond of than North Americans.  but Then Europeans go to spas to "take the waters".

Post script: My results came back Friday for the first blood work.  For all those where low is good, I was very low and for everything else, in the middle of the pack.

Water is essential for life.  You can't make coffee (or whisky) without it.



* Lena comes home from the doctors and says to Ollie, "The doctor says I am to bring him a speciment but I don't know vot it means".  Ollie says, "Ask Mrs Svenson next door".  Lena says "I hate that woman.  We cannot get along".  Ollie says, "Just be polite and ask".  Ten minutes later, Lena comes home with a black eye, and clothes torn, looking like she had been in a brawl.  "Vot hoppened?", says Ollie. "Vell, I do yust like you said.  I said 'Mrs Svenson, please, vot doss it mean ven the doctor asks for a specimen?' She says 'Ach, go pee in a bottle' unt I said 'Go poop in your hat' and the fight was on".

9 comments:

  1. Sounds like you need to train yourself to drink weaker coffee.

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    1. I usually get four to five mugs from two heaping scoops (tbs). Tanya won't drink it because it is "too weak" but she only drinks one cup in a day. Europeans drink tea the way we drink coffee.

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  2. I drink tea: Red Rose; but two bags per cup. I am convinced that companies are putting less tea leaves in the bags now. it is like downsizing of all the rest of the food products. Where cans use to be sixteen ounces they are now twelve - it is the same with all packaged goods: decrease the volume and raise the prices.
    the Ol'Buzzard

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    1. Ol'B, I have access to dozens and dozens if not hundreds of brands and flavours of teas in any grocery store. The problem is that it seems to all taste like feedlot runoff or boiled grass. I should try the two bags per cup trick.

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  3. Have you tried chai tea -- real chai, not the stuff that comes pre-mixed and sweetened? You can adjust the flavours to suit your own tastes. This is the recipe I started with, but I cut the black pepper in half (and I'm glad I did!) and skipped the ginger. I made a half batch.

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    1. Wynn Anne, I haven't the foggiest notion what is chai tea. Chai means tea in as many languages as tea means tea. Asking for a cup of tea tea, please please, sounds too embarrassing to consider. The South Africans drink Rooibos tea (Aspalathus linearis) and I am tempted to try that.

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  4. You need to ask the doc next time you see him if any of the meds you're taking interact with tea or other foods. Sometimes they do like green tea and blood thinners. Just so you know.

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    1. Thanks. I will see him tomorrow so will ask him then.

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    2. Wow -- I had never heard this, and I do take blood thinners.

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