My Doctor and Me

I despise drugs.

I don’t want to take drugs for high blood pressure.

I don’t want to take drugs for high cholesterol.

I don't want to take drugs for osteoarthritis.

I don’t want to take drugs for osteoporosis.

I don’t want to take drugs for acid reflux.

I don’t want to take drugs for thyroid.

Thyroid.  No choice.

Reluctantly, I let my primary care doctor talk me into taking a blood pressure medicine.

When I go in for my post op checkup on Monday, I tell the surgeon, the one who slit my throat while I was sleeping: 1) Several times a day, I feel like I’m being strangled; 2) I have a persistent cough.

“What blood pressure medication are you taking?”

“I don’t know.”

Arriving home, we check.  LISINOPRIL – the very one he said often causes a cough.

My heck.

  I thought I had throat cancer.

  I thought I had lung cancer.

  I though I had pneumonia.

“Better get a chest x-ray just to be safe,” he advises.

Today I go in for a chest x-ray and primary care doctor appointment.

“Lungs look OK but we need to get you on another blood pressure med.”

“No thanks.”

“Your blood pressure is 158/90 (her assistant had just taken it).  You don’t want to have a heart attack or stroke.”

“We checked it before I left home and it was 136/77.”

“I will check it myself,” she smirked, sure she had me.

130/67.

“Monitor it at home and if it gets above 140, let me know.”

I came home a happy camper – at last.

Cough  Cough.  Cough.