Lessons from three faints

Maybe this week this column should be titled “From My Hip” where, while it hurts a bit less than it did last Sunday, it still hurts a lot. Maybe I should now confess that last Sunday’s faint was the third faint in about a year-and-a-half. The first one happened when Loy and I went to his daughter Natasha’s Japanese restaurant. She brought out a pale blue bottle of Bombay Gin. Once I loved this light blue bottle. So I mixed myself a gin and tonic then another and another.

We went home. I was a bit tipsy but I got into bed. When I woke up the next day I had the most terrible backache of all. I wrote about that. It took a while for that backache to be healed. I even had to wear something like a corset to straighten my back. But I didn’t take my blood pressure. I just assumed it was the gin. Like I have said, once I used to drink a lot. Now I don’t anymore. So maybe I shouldn’t have let the pale blue bottle of gin seduce me.

Maybe more than a year passed. I wasn’t really drinking. Last November we were invited to a party where I drank wine. I was again a bit tipsy but I thought I would make it to bed. I fainted at the foot of the bed. When you faint, you don’t know that you are going to faint. Everything just goes dark. You fall. Then you open your eyes and realize you’re looking at the ceiling. With difficulty I got up and got into bed. My husband didn’t know. Nobody knew I had fallen until I woke up in the middle of the night wanting to go to the bathroom. I stood up, felt extreme pain in my back and my legs and fell again. In retrospect this was the worst fall of all. The pain was excruciating. I could not walk well. At first I needed a cane and support from either our housekeeper or my husband. I never once thought of taking my blood pressure after a fall.

 After two weeks I thought I could finally walk a respectable distance to see my pain doctor. I felt I was going to die before I got to her office, which was at the end of a long corridor. She gave me pain medicines and suggested that I see a physical therapist but I did not. I just let my body heal on its own. And finally it did. By the New Year I was walking less and less with a cane. Many friends tried to help. One of them, who owns a spa, recommended ice bags. That time the pain was on my left hip. The first Saturday of January I remember we went to Munting Sabsaban and I still had a cane. But when we went on Feb. 11, I had no more cane. I could already walk normally.

And I had secretly sworn never to drink again. I had not written about my falls in much detail because the first two falls I thought were alcohol related. That sort of embarrassed me. I didn’t want to admit to my readers that I fell because I had been drinking. Especially since I had written that I could hold alcohol very well and now suddenly I’m having painful falls.

Then last Sunday came. I hadn’t even drunk coffee. I only had water and a few black grapes. Then I fainted again and had this very painful right hip. This led me to take my blood pressure, found it immensely high, and was told by a doctor to go to the hospital, where I stayed in the emergency room (ER) for seven hours subjected to all sorts of tests and x-rays.

The ER has a way of jumbling your thoughts. They took two x-rays of my hips. They found that my left hip had once had a serious fracture but it had healed. They said it was a while back. I did not ask if it was last November though I thought it was. They suspected that my right hip had a fracture from this faint so they took a second x-ray. It didn’t have a fracture, they said, though it hurts when the painkiller wears out, or when the car goes over a sharp hump. It still hurts.

What has this third faint taught me? That it is important to take your blood pressure after a faint. The first two times I didn’t even think of blood pressure. I thought it was the alcohol. Now I know better. Either the alcohol sends my blood pressure way up or my hovering diabetes makes my blood sugar do tricks that lead to a faint. Whatever! The most important lesson is – I am growing old. No matter what I feel I should be more aware of the travails of aging.

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