I had good intentions, I really did, of getting my blog post written today. But much of yesterday was taken up with critique group issues and with seeing a cousin in the hospital. His back surgery was scheduled for 3:00 pm, but kept getting pushed back, finally to 5 pm. But around 6 the surgeon came in and said the hospital wasn’t ready and they would do the surgery today.

So we went back today. The surgery happened today from 7:30 to 10:30, and we stayed with his wife. At one point, I stood up to check the progress board. Took about 10 steps then felt woozy and my steps became plodding and irregular. Before I knew it I was on the floor. I never passed out, but couldn’t stand.

I guess, if that’s going to happen to you, it’s good for it to be at a hospital. The attendant for the waiting room called for nurses from the surgery area and three of them were by my side in less than a minute. People helped me to a chair and I felt fine. I figured it was a low blood sugar episode, and they brought me some orange juice and crackers. Actually, as soon as I got to the chair it was as if nothing had happened.

Fast forward to this afternoon and my cardio rehab session. My blood pressure before exercising was 113/60. I’m normally around 105 or 110/65. I alerted the nurse assigned to me about my morning incident so that she might watch me a little closer than normal. I did my exercises fine and felt as normal at the end. A different nurse took my bp and it was 87/48—too low to let me go. She came back in a few minutes and it was 82/42. They gave me some water and it was 78/39. More water, elevated feet. It went up to 87/48ish. I walked around and felt fine. More water, more sitting. Up to 89/60. I think they poured two more cups of water into me and some more rest, and it finally got up to 92/52, ok for me to go.

They insisted on walking me to my car, except I wasn’t going to my car. I was going to the hospital next door to see my cousin. So my nurse walked me there. I felt fine, all the time after exercising, even while they were getting low readings, and while visiting my cousin and his wife. I drove the 20 miles home with no problem.

All of which leads me to believe that this morning it might have been a low blood pressure event, not low blood sugar. I messaged my doctors about stopping the (very) low dose blood pressure med I’m on. No answer yet.

Maybe my exercise and weight loss are paying off. I’ve lost 15 pounds since June 7, about 10 of that coming in the last three weeks. I’ve been walking in the early morning, usually from 6:45 to 7:30-ish, covering 1.5 to 1.75 miles. I’ve done that almost every weekday and one Saturday. Plus the exercise at cardio rehab, and I’ve been getting a lot of steps and burning the calories. Eating better, too.

We’ll see what the doc says. Maybe I’ll be off that bp med by early next week.

Meanwhile, sorry once again that I didn’t get my post written for today. Will try again on Monday.