To Have (Or Maybe Not Have) a Stroke

"You're not leaving here with your blood pressure that high," the doctor said. It was 189 over something equally ridiculous. It was not interested in coming down. Finally she said, "Okay, pick up this prescription on your way out and take it the minute you get home." Vividly running through my head were images of my mother, who suffered a series of strokes that eventually killed her in her 70th year. Plus images of assorted aunts and others who suffered debilitating strokes and often early deaths. "But . . . but," I said to the doctor, as I have repeatedly said since my carefree youth; "I don't have high blood pressure. My three older sisters? They all had high blood pressure. They also all had beautiful auburn curls, while I got the utterly straight, dishwater blond hair. So, shortly into our adulthood, I took to saying, 'OK, keep your gorgeous curly hair, I've got the good blood pressure.' It seemed like a pretty fair trade." My physician said, not unsympathetically, "Those genes may have caught up with you." And just like that, I joined the ranks of the hypertensive. That great mass of humanity waiting apprehensively for the stroke or heart attack that might swoop in and end it all. By the time I got home I was visualizing an immediate demise. Unlike my mother's generation, though, today's hypertensives have internet encyclopedias worth of information and an arsenal of drugs bewildering enough to induce a small stroke if you really try to figure them all out. Beta bloc...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news