My Heart Caught Up With Me

I LIKE THAT Frank finally got himself a family doctor. Last month he woke up with a half-moon shape blocking his vision in one eye. He could see over the obstruction but it was very annoying. We went to the emergency department at the Campbell River hospital.

“I wonder if it has anything to do with the detached retina thing a few years ago?” Frank said.

“Hmmm, I wonder,” I said.

According to the emergency doctor it had nothing to do with a detached retina and everything to do with high blood pressure. He made arrangements for Frank to see an ophthalmologist right away. The specialist told Frank that he had suffered a burst blood vessel in his eye and was lucky that it was a small one because a rupture of a larger vessel would have caused him to be brain dead or blind. Frank remained stoic at the news. I took his cue and stayed as calm as I could.

Follow up appointments of blood work resulted in Frank being diagnosed with high blood pressure and an enlarged heart.

“Your heart has been leaking blood all these years and has caused your heart to pump harder than it should and so it is enlarged as a result,” the doctor said.

Frank is now taking Quinapril http://www.medicinenet.com/quinapril/article.htm and a baby Aspirin once a day.

“I guess my heart has caught up to my age,” Frank said. “Boy, turning sixty-nine has been a kicker.”

I could sense his sadness and disappointment that he could no longer ignore his leaky heart valve and succumb to taking a prescribed drug. His leaky heart valve had been detected in him when he was a young man, but the doctor at the time told him not to worry about it. He never did. And now, we both take care.

My heart caught up with me.