Saturday was a bit of a rough day, probably because of my actions on Friday. Wife was off on Friday and I told her to run to the store and get food for the weekend, since I was at work and the plan was to have a relaxing weekend at home while I get through my chemotherapy time (hopefully it'll only be 2-4 months). When I got home after work, she had just gotten home and the kitchen was fully loaded, tons of fruit, bags of chips on the counters, meat for Sunday, new new cases of sodas, I mean $500 of groceries is a nice pile. I thought it easy to open a big bag of potato chips and tear in, why not, I've done this before, and I ate a good amount of the bag while talking with Wife about my day and busting balls with Mijo about his mediocre grass cutting efforts outside, all good fun. Wife made sandwiches of ham and bologna and we added more chips.
Time passed, I might have taken a quick nap after work, I had gotten out of work around 3:30 pm, and then we were here putzing around while Wife helped Mijo write a paper of some kind I was of course sampling the Easter chocolates by the handful). We didn't end up leaving the house until after 7:00 pm, we took Mijo to San Marcos, he was going to go spend the night at his friend's apartment as it was one of their birthdays. We came back, and then ate some sandwiches of tuna which Wife made earlier, it was supposed to be salmon patties, and the tuna was for Mijo who doesn't like salmon, but since it was late and he left, we ate the tuna. Again, more potato chips were included, and since the bag was empty, I switched to tortilla chips, and just used the tuna as dipping material to change it from boring sandwiches. I am taking my chemo drug around 7:00 pm, I like it better in the evening when I am going to be home, in case anything weird happens, I am not at work. Because of the medicine, I am supposed to track my blood pressure at least twice a day. I have become obsessed with the blood pressure monitor, as I tend to do with new things.
After eating all that salty stuff and the chemo drugs, I should not have been surprised my readings came in about 170/94 at night before bedtime. I went to bed a little worried, but I had already dealt with a heart rate in the low 50s and even 40s and was told "it's the medicine, give the blood pressure medicine a chance to do its thing." All day Saturday, it was still high, 164/95 when I woke, and 160/96 before bedtime. But I started reading about sodium and it really is the worst for blood pressure. I talked to my clinical study lady and she said if it doesn't come down or I feel sick, go to the ER.
After eating a bunch of fruit all day and too much water, not to mention some romantic time since we were alone, I did get my blood pressure to read 133/84, so it shows I can bring it down. This then prompted Wife, we went for a drive and ended up at a weird HEB, but now we are focusing on low sodium foods, and reading on potassium chloride, a salt substitute which is supposed to be good for you, potassium replaces sodium and it doesn't seem to be bad like sodium is. I am now in a new mindset of trying to lower my blood pressure by reducing sodium and increasing potassium. Sunday morning my blood pressure was 154/95 with a more normal heart rate of 67. I realize it is still high, but better than 170/94. I will keep working on it, Amazon just delivered some Nusalt, a sodium replacement, so we'll see.
I wrote this Sunday morning, but I am adding that the changes in diet already seem to be helping, in real time. Last night my readings were 129/83, with a hr of 73, and this after taking Mijo up to Georgetown and back in shitty traffic. Monday morning, my readings are 147/86, with a hr of 63. The meds are supposed to elevate the readings, but this is before taking my blood pressure medicine. I hope I have this thing under control, the weekend was a bit stressful.
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