Dying Mans Daily Journal sept 28

Not having a good day today. With the heart failure I retain a lot of fluid, this extra fluid just makes the heart work that much harder. The doctors have me on a daily dosage of 2 different water pills and then twice a week I take a third pill, what I call the mega pill. Usually, this system works fairly well. However occasionally they don’t seem to work. Even the doctors can’t explain why. May be my body just has a weird reaction to the pills or maybe it is reaction to the combination of pills I take. I take 29 pills a day not all are different but a total of 29. Anyway, taking my pills cause me to void most of the extra fluid, but it still builds. About once a month or so it is like a damn lets loose or something and I have what I call a “pee” day. Yesterday, was one of those days, I voided 11 pounds. Now I know everyone will say, “yeah sure” he got rid of 11 pounds in one day. Even my doctors scoffed at that, when I told them of my “pee” days. They even put me in the hospital for 10 days, closely supervising my medication intake. Well, I didn’t have an 11 pound day but I did have an 8 pound day. Now they believe me. Having a day like that really messes with your electolites and potasium levels. I take different medications for that and within a day or two I am back to normal and the cycle begins again.

Today, is just one of those bad days and I know that and am hoping my out look will change over the next day or two. In fact I am sure it will. Right now I am questioning if I made a big mistake a day or two ago, I let my wife read my blog and we had a open honest discussion about my condition and how I feel. Up to that point I have always minimized or just laughed it all off. Now, I know this is likely all in my head but since our discussion I have not felt the need to minimize and suddenly in my mind anyway everything seems to feel worse. Chest pain, tiredness, light headedness, nausea. By trying to “protect” everyone from worrying about  my condition, was I at the same time helping myself. Maybe I was helping myself, even more than my family, some how by not acknowledging the discomfort or atleast minimizing it, it almost didn’t seem so real. Am I now really, feeling what I feel. I think likely, I am just having a bad day and feeling sorry for myself. I am sure I will be feeling better by tomorrow, sorry for the whining.

Vi, and I have talked much more about my writings here, I even suggested that she might want to occasionally write something. After all I am not the only one going through all of this. In fact I believe it is harder on her than on me. I think hearing things from her point of view may be beneficial to other, don’t know. She is reluctant, I think shy. Maybe one day you will see a posting from her, I hope so.