Postcards from the Funny Farm

If anyone out there is considering their own domain and a break with blogspot, live journal, or any of the other free blog services, I have a double whammy recommendation: Lunarpages.com

They are offering right now a HUGE set of software free with new signups. It’s stuff from Coffee Cup and it’s really useful.Today I took some video of my little girl on the trampoline and with the dog to send to family and I realized that free software I got through Lunarpages allows me to “be my own Youtube” in essence. It provides a whole suite with one part to host video on your site and blog. If I ever take video worth presenting on Riley Central I’ll show you how it looks. Until then, go check out lunarpages.com and coffee cup software.

Ok now the journal. I’m a little blown away today. Yesterday the doc kinda yelled at me because I haven’t been taking the high blood pressure medicine dilatezem, or something like that. I told him I would start right away. Well, he didn’t like my numbers so he gave me “the speech to scare me” as he defined it. He said he had a young man of 40 in his office in a wheelchair from a stroke because he didn’t take his meds as he was prescribed to. WOW. I told him I was scared and went right home and swallowed one down. Tonight the same. Every night, the same. He won’t do the vasectomy until my BP is normal. Right now it rides anywhere from 130/80 to 150/110 and he says that’s not safe. I have seen myself as 28 since I was 28, 10 years ago. The reality is that I’m getting older and the decisions I make on what to take now and what to do now in terns of diet and exercise will determine how I feel or even if I’ll be around when my kids are grown.

I’m sharing this in a public journal because I want people to take their health seriously. In truth, I should have been taking this medicine 5-6 years ago but I was in denial. I’m gonna be fine because I still am in the scheme of life relatively young. Sometimes we just need a little medicine to live better. I’m not gonna fight it anymore. I dreaded going into the doctor about the vasectomy because I thought this would be an issue but thanks to the vasectomy, I will probably avoid a stroke or even death!!! (The doc said those things theoretically and practically can happen when blood pressure is not managed) It’s still summer, pay attention to getting healthy for a new year (school year anyway) and then do what the doctor says. I know first-hand it’s often easier said than done.