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Health Notes

 I know it's been awhile again since I posted, in my defence the first two weeks of October are usually pretty busy particularly between the 6th and the 12th as we have a birthday nearly every one of those days.

This year on top of that I am dealing poorly with the number 65 as it relates to me. I suppose I should explain that a bit more for those of you who don't know me well. I turned 65 on the 7th, I did not expect to get anywhere near that age. It is an easily identifiable important age as it is when my generation was taught old age begins. OLD AGE! who saw that coming?

Obviously I did but it still shook me up. In our minds we are usually somewhere in our teens mentally until we can no longer deny that the years are catching up. Similar to what the 20 something experiences when they first have to start adulting, that mental blow that says we are no longer children but adults only for me I am no longer middle aged I am officially old.

This year has been one long prep for this particular birthday, starting with applying for the Old Age Pension and CPP. For those about a year from that birthday start getting the applications done, it takes awhile for them to process it. Even now though I know I have been approved for the pension I have no idea how much it will be and my CPP is less than $100 per month. Until I get the first payment I have no idea how much I'm going to be living on. 

What I do know is that with ODSP  I live on approx 1400$, I hope the pension is at least that much but I've heard that it may be lower. I won't know until November 1st. Hopefully it is enough because my rent goes up January 1st 2026 for the first time in years.

On top of dealing with that, I managed to end up in the Emerge at the hospital. I cut myself on a vegetable slicer, (took a nice chunk out of my baby finger), and it wouldn't stop bleeding because of the blood thinners. I am grateful to the health care people but the wait can be quite long and while I waited they had to rewrap my finger 3x because I kept bleeding through the bandaid. I had like four layers of gauze around it before I was seen. I know if it had been a dangerous bleed I would have been seen much more quickly and that is some comfort. Still a bit scary though.

Yeesh I just realized I don't think I told you guys about the first trip to emerge in a decade or more. Or did I? Not sure so here is a quick summary. I ended up at emerge for the first time in decades because I looked into my bathroom mirror and noticed my right side of my face was sagging like the way a stroke victims does. It turned out I was ok but they put me on low-dose aspirin as a cautionary measure.

Then on my last visit to the doctor, he commented that my blood pressure was very high. With that on top of the high blood sugar I was informed that if I didn't get physically active again and start controlling my blood sugar I was a prime candidate for a heart attack. A walking heart attack waiting to happen is what I was told. It scared me but not enough I think, I still cheat a lot and my physical activity is very low. I still spend more time in front of this machine than I do doing anything else.

Stage 1 hypertension is where my blood pressure resides and my blood sugar stays around 12 which is at the low end of the danger zone but still nearly twice what it should be. Without the aspirin and the metformin I would be dead I think. Isn't that a scary thought.

Well thats where I'm at health wise right now, well that's not all of but it has been on my mind of late. Tell me about your health issues and your experience with the pension stuff. I'm curious how you dealt with it or plan to deal with it.

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