I Want to Be Healthy
I joined a gym about a year ago. Best of intentions. It didn't go so well. It's been about a year since I last visited the place! So much for that.
But I can justify my lack of interest in gym time. I am a construction worker. I have lost a LOT of weight since taking this job, too. In fact, my belt buckle is now on a notch that it hasn't seen in over a decade. I'm slimming down and shaping up. So who needs the gym?
But there are other problems looming on the horizon, problems that gym time or work time won't help with. I get headaches. I get them often. So I went to a neurologist to see if they could figure something out. They did. They sent me to get an MRI and when the results came in it was quite a shock.
The voice over the phone told me, "Sir, you lave lesions on your brain. You appear to have had a stroke."
Wow. A stroke! Really, you would think that would be something I would have noticed. How does one have a stroke and not even be aware of it? But somehow it seems that this has happened to me. I feel no worse for the experience. And yet.
There's always the possibility that another could hit me. The next one might be a tad more noticeable. It might knock me off my feet for good. I know that. I know that this is not something to play with, something to ignore. So I've gone in for an EEG and I'm supposed to be getting a second MRI. We're going to get to the bottom of this. We're going to figure out what the hell is going on in my brain.
Till then, I just do what I can to take things easy. It's an issue at work. Construction workers deal with the worst that the environment can throw at us. Heat? Oh, hell yes. I live in Las Vegas. It's a desert! Even when a breeze is blowing it just feels like someone is standing in front of me with a hair-dryer pointed at my face. No respite. Unrelenting heat. Not good for a brain that may already be over-cooked.
But I do a lot of my work indoors and when I do go outside it's never for too long. I think I'll survive my job. In fact, I doubt that the heat really has anything at all to do with what's going on in my head. I just can't wait to get this next MRI. They are telling me that they'll have some answers for me then. They're even telling me it may not have been a stroke at all, it may have been something else entirely. So for now I play the "wait and see" game. And do the best I can with what I've got.
But I can justify my lack of interest in gym time. I am a construction worker. I have lost a LOT of weight since taking this job, too. In fact, my belt buckle is now on a notch that it hasn't seen in over a decade. I'm slimming down and shaping up. So who needs the gym?
But there are other problems looming on the horizon, problems that gym time or work time won't help with. I get headaches. I get them often. So I went to a neurologist to see if they could figure something out. They did. They sent me to get an MRI and when the results came in it was quite a shock.
The voice over the phone told me, "Sir, you lave lesions on your brain. You appear to have had a stroke."
Wow. A stroke! Really, you would think that would be something I would have noticed. How does one have a stroke and not even be aware of it? But somehow it seems that this has happened to me. I feel no worse for the experience. And yet.
There's always the possibility that another could hit me. The next one might be a tad more noticeable. It might knock me off my feet for good. I know that. I know that this is not something to play with, something to ignore. So I've gone in for an EEG and I'm supposed to be getting a second MRI. We're going to get to the bottom of this. We're going to figure out what the hell is going on in my brain.
Till then, I just do what I can to take things easy. It's an issue at work. Construction workers deal with the worst that the environment can throw at us. Heat? Oh, hell yes. I live in Las Vegas. It's a desert! Even when a breeze is blowing it just feels like someone is standing in front of me with a hair-dryer pointed at my face. No respite. Unrelenting heat. Not good for a brain that may already be over-cooked.
But I do a lot of my work indoors and when I do go outside it's never for too long. I think I'll survive my job. In fact, I doubt that the heat really has anything at all to do with what's going on in my head. I just can't wait to get this next MRI. They are telling me that they'll have some answers for me then. They're even telling me it may not have been a stroke at all, it may have been something else entirely. So for now I play the "wait and see" game. And do the best I can with what I've got.
51-55, M
