Saturday, April 02, 2011

My uncle M came round on Thursday. He's always been the sanest and funniest of all my uncles, and has had the most common sense when it comes to dealing with my mental grandparents. Only. And I think i've bitched about this on here, is that over the last two or three years he's been distant, not helped.
I found out that in that time span he's suffered from three heart attacks and has been warned that another would be fatal, that his body would no longer be strong enough to fight it. That his heart is aged 25 years older than what it should be. He's in his mid-forties. Not sick enough to go on the heart transplant list, but sick enough to die at any moment should another occur. He's relatively healthy, doesn't drink to excess, used to play rugby, goes to the gym, scuba-dives, travels the world, rarely smokes.
Seems wrong.
Seems unfair that yet another family member is to be stolen from me.

Anyway, Mother also chose to disclose that when she was born she was very seriously ill and had a heart operation herself, although she never saw it as a problem after that apart from the fact that she has to beware of her high blood pressure (explains why the docs got so stressed about her possibly having a stroke after her car accident/Dad kicking the bucket.) Added to my Granddad's pacemaker and other uncle (one of her other brothers) having 3 almost simultaneous heart attacks, two of her sisters dying shortly after birth (she doesn't know what of, but now suspects that it also could have been a heart defect) and naturally she's a little concerned for the welfare of her children.
Could this be a genetic problem? Actually lets rephrase that. She's concerned for BRAT. Not me. I was told of this whole thing as matter-of-factly as if Uncle M was off to Thailand again. Brat MUST Go to the Doctors! He MUST now quit the fags that he says he doesn't smoke but it's obvious that he reeks of it! He MUST stop drinking. How best should we tell him? How will he take it?
Me? "You should consider how hard this is for Brat."
Oh. Gee. Thanks.

I was quite happy personally, thinking it was just gonna be the Cancer that carries me off in some dim and distant future. Now I've got Genetic Heart Problems racing up on the inside rail. Shall I go to the docs? Am I being paranoid? I've convinced myself I suffer from palpations. I asked CL for her medical advice and she seems to think that as my heart didn't explode from all the adrenaline pumping through it as I skydived/bungyed/etc I should be fine. M did all those things too. He was the one who encouraged me to do it, he has his DiveMaster PADI. (in fact his first heart attack came after he logged his 50th dive).
What about Marc-Vivian Foe?
She said, just to mention it to the nurse when I go in three months or so, for my magic-anti-baby pills. I feel caught up in agony that I'm losing another family member that I'm very fond of, guilt that I'm not as worried about Brat as I should be and fear that something could be wrong with me. Not sure I wanna go and waste the doctors time asking for advice when they have clearly properly ill people to deal with and no time for me suffering from hypercondria. Not sure I wanna wait three months to be reassured too.

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