I have really been ignoring looking into my health for years.
I am from the frame of thought that if, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
Well, when it comes to humans, I’ve recently found out that you should at least take a look every now and then to see if it’s on it’s way to being broke!
As part of your D.O.T (Department of Transportation) physical, you need to check your blood pressure. I never check mine and because I feel good I thought that everything was great.
I have checked my blood pressure with the machines in the Walgreens or CVS stores, and it has always been a bit high, but I figured it was their way of scaring you into treatments or drugs or something.
Yeah, I’m a bit of a psycho when it comes to that stuff!
Anyway, when I went to the Disney World doctor for my DOT physical and the nurse took my blood pressure she had a bit of a concerned look on her face. “I need to get the doctor to have a look at that”, she said as she left the room.
I thought it was odd, but thought maybe the machine was “off.”
The doctor came in and checked my blood pressure again with a manual blood pressure tester and immediately told me, “you need to go to your primary physician.”
Well. I don’t have a primary doctor and asked if he could recommend one.
He gave me a few suggestions without really giving me a name and told me, “you have STAGE II hypertension.”
I didn’t give it a second thought really because I don’t know shit about this kind of thing. I said I would get it checked out and come back with the letter he requested.
I went out to my car and did a very dumb thing…
I looked up Stage II hypertension on the internet!!
I thought, “holy crap, I could have a heart attack at any minute and I’m going to die!”
Then there was a panicked phone call to Lorena and by the time I got back to our RV where she was waiting for me I was in full blown panic mode!
I’m going to make a long story short.
We spent the weekend with friends and they talked me down off the roof!
I change my diet immediately.
Started exercising more.
I started checking my blood pressure regularly. Probably a little too regularly!
A couple of weeks later I walked into another doctor’s office and they found that my blood sugar was high, but not in Stage II hypertension range.
WHAT!?
I went back to the Disney World doctor, passed my physical, and got my medical card.
I was DOT ready and on my way to getting my Class B CDL and starting my job as a Walt Disney World bus driver.
We’ll have more on that as we move forward!
