Oops, there it is

Yesterday, from late afternoon through the evening, I managed to hammer out a couple of world-building concepts for a new story. Considering that I’d been struggling for three days to try to come up with something cohesive enough to call an idea, this was great progress. I thought to myself, maybe my memory issues from the medications aren’t so bad that they’ll cost me the writing.

At about midnight, my darling hubby and I were heading off to bed, and I glanced at my pill box, to make sure I didn’t have any more antibiotics to take (twice a day, those). Turns out my morning meds, which included my bisoprolol for the heart problem, were still in the box. Oops.

I didn’t intentionally skip a dose. One of the problems with having an unreliable memory is that sometimes you just forget to do stuff – like take meds. It’s kind of interesting though, that my memory/concentration issues improved despite me genuinely having no knowledge that I’d missed a dose. No placebo/nocebo effect there.

You can probably imagine how difficult it was for me to take those meds, after experiencing a glimmer of my former sharp-mindedness. I knew exactly what effect I was causing when I put them in my mouth and swallowed.

My heart took away a lot of things in my life, but I never felt like it took away the core characteristics that made me who I am. No matter that I couldn’t walk fast anymore or do the nursing work I loved. No matter that I couldn’t drive a car or walk through the grocery store without someone along-side who knew what to do if I started looking/feeling bad. Those were just activities. They weren’t ME.

The bisoprolol has made my heart a little better. I can tolerate a little more. My heart rate is only 120-130 at the top of the steps these days, rather than 140-170. My episodes tend to only happen if I over-do it (still pretty easy to do) or if I am exposed to psychological stress (or smart-ass pizza delivery people). But I’m not sure it’s worth the trade. What good does it do to fix my body if in the process I give up the parts of my mind that make me who I am? My memory, my ability to concentrate and finish tasks, my creativity… these things are more precious to me than physical endurance.

I’m not the sort to stop a medication for non-life threatening side effects until I’ve spoken with my doctor about it, so I’ll wait until I see my cardiologist again at the end of the month. I’m not even sure if there are any options, honestly. We’ve tried just about everything, and bisoprolol has been the only medication I’ve tolerated longer than a month or so. Guess I’ll wait and see if the doc has any ideas.