Silent, Their Men walk by

 

Dear Friend,

I know you have read my blogs over the last few months in which I told you I was feeling ill. So today I have decided  to send you a rant I wrote about why this was so.  I am sending it to the OLDIE magazine and hope they might publish it under RANTS.  Its worth a try.

High Blood pressure.

 

I am 86 and was perfectly happy until April this year.   Then it was discovered that I had high blood pressure.  And the fun began. I needed to get a reading of, sometimes, 240/89, down to 130 /75 approximately every day.  If I couldn’t achieve this figure I would probably have a heart attack. So it was medications for me.  All in all over the four months of horror I tried four different pills and had various distressing and depressing results.  These pills made me very ill, and very tired.  

 

Here is a list of the side effects which made my life a misery:

Burning sensation in the hands, palpitations, chronic constipation, disturbing thoughts, tingling everywhere, tiredness, inability to sleep,

swelling of the ankles and legs, hearing ear syndrome, which meant I heard music in my ears all day, headaches and almost anything else you can think of. The absolute worst one was Ramipril.   This one gave me a hacking cough, as well as everything else, especially at night.  With only one and a half lungs in my chest, this was not good. 

 

But the joy was, of course, that in spite of these horrific side effects, taking the pills meant that I might not get  heart attack for years, so the doctor kindly told me.  So here is the dilemma:

 

Either you take the beastly pills and feel languid and lifeless all the time , without let up, but maybe halt the heart attack, or you decide to not take anything, enjoy your last years on earth and wait for your fate with equanimity.  

                                                                                      *

From Dorothy Wordsworth   August 31st   1800 in Westmorland

‘A great deal of corn is cut in the vale, and the whole prospect, though not indeed with a general autumnal yellow, yet softened down into a mellowness of colouring, which seems to impart softness to the forms of hills and mountains.  At 11 o’clock Coleridge came, when I was walking in the still clear moonshine in the green.  He came over Helvellyn.  William was gone to bed, and John also, worn out with his ride round Coniston.  We sate and chatted till past three.  Coleridge read us a part  of Christabel.’

                                                                              *

Silent, Their Men Stnd by

as universal woman talks,

with women

who are not friends,

or neighbours,

or women they know or love,

just women.

Their bonding thread

is laughter, touch, glance, cry,

instant understanding.

While silent, mystified, their men stand by.

                                                                          *

With much love from Patricia