Retreat — March 2011 —No. 6: Health Scare

     At the end of my previous post on this topic,* I wrote, "As the end of the retreat approached, I felt that it had been quite worthwhile, and I expected to be able to apply my newfound aptitude to prayer to my everyday life."


     On the last full day of the retreat, I woke probably a little after 6:00 a.m. and began to consider whether I should sleep a little longer or get up. When I opened my eyes, the room seemed to be spinning rapidly from left to right. This was so novel an experience that I wondered briefly if I was dying. I decided to get out of bed and see what would happen. The spinning illusion (which I understand is what is specifically meant by the term "vertigo") diminished gradually over the next several minutes, but when I looked out the window and saw a fishing boat on the cove, I saw it double. I decided to go take a shower so that if I collapsed someone would find me. By 7:00 (breakfast time), I was feeling normal, but still quite alarmed at the experience.


     I informed my retreat director of this a the beginning of our meeting that morning. He asked if I wanted to be taken to the hospital, and I agreed to go after our meeting.


     At the hospital emergency room, I reported the event to the physician. They also found that my blood pressure was high. The physician suspected a "TIA" (transient ischemic accident — or something like that — sort of a mini-stroke). A CAT scan showed nothing significant. She called my regular doctor, and they agreed that I should get in touch with him to arrange for further testing (MRI). She administered some blood pressure medicine and aspirin, and sent me back with a sheet of instructions which said, among other things, that if there were another such incident I should see a doctor or go to a hospital immediately.


     The next morning when I woke up, I experienced vertigo again, although it was milder than the first time. Since it was the day for us to leave, I packed my things and went and knocked on my retreat director's door. He drove me to the hospital. At the emergency room my blood pressure was high again. They gave me something to lower it. After examining me, the doctor consulted with another doctor. I overheard her saying to him that if she had seen me the day before she would have thought I had benign vertigo, not a TIA. But now I was back again, and since it was my second time and my blood pressure was high, they shouldn't just let me go. He agreed. She came back and persuaded me to let myself be admitted to the hospital so they could have the MRI done.


     They were not able to get me to the affiliated hospital which has the MRI equipment until Thursday evening. Friday morning, although my blood pressure was still high, I basically insisted on being released. The attending doctor gave me a prescription for blood pressure medicine. I picked up my stuff at the retreat house and got home late Friday afternoon.


     I saw my own doctor on Monday afternoon. My blood pressure was normal when the nurse took it, slightly elevated when he took it. He looked at the results of the MRI and said they showed nothing unusual for a 68-year-old man. After wavering on whether I needed to have any blood pressure medicine, he finally decided to prescribe half the dosage the doctor at the hospital had prescribed (the smallest size in which the pills are made) and 81 mg aspirin daily (baby aspirin).


     Over the next several weeks, I noticed that I tended to feel dizzy when standing up and still. So I stopped taking the blood pressure medicine and the dizziness went away. I check my blood pressure occasionally. Sometimes it's normal a,d sometimes it's in the borderline range, with occasional readings in the high range for one or the other measurement. I haven't gotten around to starting the aspirin. And a part from one very slight bit of vertigo a couple of weeks after the retreat, there has been no more of that.


     So basically, I seem to be fine, and the second ER doctor seems to have been right that it was just some benign vertigo (which typically goes away). But the break in the routine of the retreat and the time in the hospital meant that I didn't make a smooth transition from my prayerful routine of the retreat to improved habits of prayer at home. Basically, I found myself back where I was before the retreat and having to recapture what I had accomplished on retreat. In my next post on this topic, I'll let you know how that's been going.


*Earlier posts (as well as that one) are accessible by clicking on "retreat" in the list of topics at the bottom of the left side column.