Houston, We Have a Problem

9:18 pm

56/35 65 bpm - 75/49 96 bpm

What the hell happened? 56/35 blood pressure? The first two times I tried to take it, I got an error message on the machine. I had to hurry up and lie down on the bed in between takes because I was browning out. I woke up at 10:30 am, it's Sunday, so my meds were 4 hours late getting into my body. That's always a problem it seems, on weekends. After I took them and ate breakfast, I was just puttering around, cleaning up, doing dishes, etc. when all of a sudden I felt pretty dizzy. It reached defcon 5 and that's when I grabbed the blood pressure machine and tried with everything I had to stand upright to get a reading. I hit the button and the cuff inflated, but I never felt it get tight around my arm, and I knew I would get the error message. After I hit the bed, I waited for a little while then got to the kitchen and poured a large glass of water and downed it quickly. I tried the machine again but still couldn't get a reading. I downed another glass of water, then got the 56/35. I can only imagine what my blood pressure was when I couldn't get the reading.

I wanted to go to the market to pick up a few things but I knew I'd never make it unless I got the pressure up. So I cut some celery up and doused it with salt and also drank a cup of chicken bouillon. It was enough to do the trick but my next concern was being able to work out on the Precor at the gym this evening; at this rate I was going to have to ride the recumbent bike, which I really hate doing.

I drank a ton of water throughout the day and doused my omelet with salt and by taking it slowly, was able to work out on the Precor. When I got home from the gym, my reading was 75/49 96 bpm - still kind of off.

Exercise is so important to me. When I was 14 I started running, and I've never stopped, metaphorically. Since then I have always exercised, through sickness and in health, till death do us part. It started out as a way to control my weight (and still does) but it also provides so much more. It keeps me sane by creating endorphins and helping me to de-stress after work; it helps my migraines by creating serotonin and again, by keeping my stress level down; and now more than ever, it is helping with the dysautonomia.

How? I believe I am ahead of the game by having well developed leg muscles. Somehow, the muscles help with the blood pooling, by preventing it. Not entirely, but it helps. And everything I've read about this syndrome says that exercise is beneficial and inactivity is bad. I know there are people with this who are in wheelchairs and who are bedridden and that could so easily be me. There are too many days when I would rather get around in a wheelchair because I am exhausted beyond belief or because just standing up makes my pulse race like crazy and all sorts of nasty chemicals shoot through my veins (with equally nasty side-effects). And believe me, I do my share of laying around in bed. In fact, come the weekend, that's all I want to do. It's me and the remote control and the DVR. Because I'm physically exhausted from the work week. And at times like right now, when I also have the deadly monthly migraine, I'd rather just exist asleep.

But I eventually get my ass out of bed and go to the gym and do at least one hour of aerobic exercise and sometimes two. Four times a week. If the fatigue monkey is on my back really badly, then that may be 3 times a week. I've gotten a little lax on the weight machines since this hit me last August, but I know I will eventually get back to that. I know, that when I leave the gym, I feel better than when I entered it.

It is strange, feeling like a car and not a person. Running on empty this morning, unable to pull out of the driveway. Having to fill myself up with "gas" - drugs, salt and water - in order to function. It used to be that my tank was always full. Now I know that that tank starts on empty every morning and that it must be filled in order for the car to go anywhere. Why did I become a clunker? And will I be one for the rest of my life?