"Heart"-felt post

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Hello Chanters, it's been minute since I've commented on any posts around here, much less written one of my own.  Recently, Sarge has been fully engaged in his storytelling during retirement, and Juvat has been as prolific as ever.  However, with Juvat's Medal of Honor posts, how many times can I comment that they have balls of steel?  

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Not that I need to defend myself for my absence, but I had a lot going on past month and a half.  In March I had to seek conservatorship over my month-in-law due to her dementia, and the court requirements after that order are not insubstantial.  There's a lot of paperwork and court-ordered reporting, inventorying her assets, obtaining bonds, etc.  I also finished up a collateral duty with the Knights of Columbus, running membership across California, which was essentially a part time job.  Rewarding, but I'm very glad it's over.  The final month of the term was June, which was a very busy and demanding one, with constant emails, phone calls, and paperwork.  I also had several trips around California for that, and barely had time to breathe, much less relax, but my efforts were ultimately successful.  We blew past our membership goal and started a half-dozen new councils around the state, but getting there took a lot of work.  However, that was not the only eventful thing to happen. 

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On Thursday June 11th as I was leaving a KofC meeting, I started getting a headache.  While on the road, my jaw tightened up, and it felt like my molars were being pushed out of my jaw.  I also had a pain in my neck up into my head which was pounding harder than I had ever felt.  So I diverted towards the hospital and was there within 10 minutes.  No Juvat, I didn't think about what you had gone through, and so I didn't pull over.  But in my defense, I was focused on the short drive to the hospital and the pain wasn't unbearable.  However, soon that pain radiated down into my chest , grew in intensity, and I had some shortness of breath.  By then I was pulling off the freeway, in sight of the hospital.   I walked into the ER and explained my symptoms.  I've had long ER waits in the past, but if you describe the symptoms I had, the ER brings you in immediately!  

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I seemed to be a very popular patient, as I had plenty of attention as the nurses quickly hooked me up to every monitor and machine.  That showed my blood pressure at 199 over 99 and a heart rate of 120.  They did the full heart attack work up, gave me some nitroglycerin under the tongue to bring my BP down, looped the O2 hose around my ears and into my nose, and called in for both an X-Ray and a CT.  They also took some blood to check for the presence of the TPA enzyme (natural clot reducer) to determine if I was actually having a heart attack or not.  

It took a few hours to get the results, and fortunately, I was in the clear, as the TPA test, the X-Ray and CT were all negative.  By the time the second TPA test was complete four hours later, it was dawn and the doctor released me with an order to follow up with my primary care Doc.  I wanted to know what was actually wrong with me, but I got nothing more than the fact that I wasn't having heart attack and I was no longer in an emergent situation.  However, they did prescribe me some Amlodipine for blood pressure, although by the time I left, it was back in my normal, non-hypertensive state (118/80).  

I wasn't able to pick up that prescription until Friday afternoon though because later that morning at 9:00 am, shortly after being discharged, I had an appointment with the Social Security Administration.  As I've mentioned here before, I have a special needs adult son who receives SSI, and I'm his representative payee.  It's my responsibility to manage that money and ensure his group home receives payment.  Most of the funds are for his board and care, but a little is for personal care and incidentals (P&I), like clothing, soap, toothpaste, etc.  While the money must be deposited in a federally insured bank, I prefer to use Navy Federal Credit Union, which doesn't meet their criteria.  Therefore, each month I would transfer the money from USAA (which doesn't allow auto payments through Zelle) into my Navy Federal account and pay his room and board from there.    The SSI comes in at the end of the month and it is my responsibility to ensure that that money is spent not only wisely, but timely as well.  Since SSI is needs-based, the bank balance in that USAA account should never be greater than $2,000.  So if grandma gives him a little money, or his P&I sits unspent, and I pay his rent on the 4th when it's due, it's easy to bust that 2k limit.   His rent is not very expensive, and I don't need a timely transfer of his funds to my account in order to pay it, so I was not always timely in that actual transfer.  The average balance in that account was rarely over $2,000, but 18 separate times on the very first day of the month it was.  SSA had sent me a letter claiming that because of my oversight, they were going to come after me to recoup 18 months of his payments.  Talk about a major stressor!  I was oblivious to the stress though.

I didn't realize it at the time, but the stress had been weighing on me for a couple months (since the letter from the SSA scheduling that appt), at the same time I was busy with KofC duties.  However, logic was telling me that this would all be worked out, I would easily be able to explain my self and promise to be more diligent in the future.  Yet, my body wasn't listening to my brain.  I realized later the jaw pain came from me clenching my teeth at night, AKA Bruxism or TMD, a known reaction to stress for me, which had been documented in my health records from my flying days long ago.  That also caused the headache.  The high blood pressure was just an associated symptom due to the stress. 

While the meeting was completed with some satisfaction, and the bureaucrat understood and accepted my explanation, he said it was a peer review.  I would have to write all of it up and provide a team of 3 agents with 3 years of bank statements so they could analyze my banking efforts.  Again, my logic told me that this was an easy task and I would be able to satisfy their demands, but my body was not listening.  I wound up spending Saturday night in the ER- same symptoms.  While I knew it was just a continued stress response, my cousin who is a nurse, with whom we were out to dinner, demanded that I head straight to the ER.  As expected, this was a repeat of Thursday night, both with their actions and the results, and my blood pressure, heart rate, and overall feeling of health came back into limits by the next morning. 

Sunday was spent writing up my statement and downloading bank statements.  I also uploaded them into an AI model with the prompt of identifying the average daily balance and average monthly balance, as well as a coherent narrative.  That proved, at least to me that while I did not meet the strict interpretation of the regulation (the 2K limit), I met the spirit of it through regular transfers and payments of his board and care. I also added to my statement that I always spent the money on my son's care and no fraudulent activity was ever intended.  I provided all of this to the agent on Monday and felt an instant sense of calm and relief.  Since then my BP has been within acceptable limits, both with the Rx, and without (initial script ran out).

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The rest of the month was filled with various appointments, a full cardiac contrast CT workup, a stress test, an appointment with my primary care physician and a cardiac nurse.  The contrast CT did show some slight blockage in an artery and I will soon have a angioplasty as some preventative maintenance.  So while it was a month filled with a lot of good lessons for me, it was also probably somewhat of a blessing.  I need to not only recognize situations that might be stressful (since I won't necessarily feel stressed), but I may need to take on less responsibility to manage that stress.  And losing some weight won't hurt.  That SSA problem, while scary for my wife and stressful, ultimately revealed that blockage, so getting that taken care of will be good.  I have also set up an auto transfer off his entire SSI payment into my NFCU account on the 30th of the month so he'll never be over.  

So I have some work ahead of me.  Less KofC, more exercise.  Delegate some more to my wife and stop being a control freak.  Finish all the court stuff and take more vacations!