{"id":469,"date":"2011-05-17T15:31:46","date_gmt":"2011-05-17T19:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dailyjoys\/?p=469"},"modified":"2011-05-17T15:34:34","modified_gmt":"2011-05-17T19:34:34","slug":"national-high-blood-pressure-and-stroke-awareness-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailyjoys\/2011\/05\/national-high-blood-pressure-and-stroke-awareness-month.html","title":{"rendered":"National High Blood Pressure and Stroke Awareness Month"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thirty nine years ago today my mother died.  I was thirteen years old.  I heard things around the house like, &#8220;The doctor said I needed to take a higher dose of my blood pressure medication.&#8221;  I had no real concept of what high blood pressure actually was.  I knew enough to associate it with limited patience and a short temper.  That&#8217;s about it.<\/p>\n<p>The last year of my mother&#8217;s life a family friend cared enough to alert me to the signs of a stroke. I remember I was supposed to look for a crooked smile.\u00a0 Perhaps if, at thirteen, I&#8217;d been near the &#8220;information highway&#8221; I would have known the acronym FAST &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Face:\u00a0 Ask the person to smile. Is one side dropping? (Crooked smile)<\/p>\n<p>Arms:\u00a0 Ask the person to raise both arms&#8230;is one arm drifting downward?<\/p>\n<p>Speech: Ask the person to repeat a simple phrase.\u00a0 Are the words difficult to understand?<\/p>\n<p>Time:\u00a0 Is of the utmost importance&#8230;if any of these signs are present, call 9-1-1. Immediately.<\/p>\n<p>The heart is a complex and amazing instrument.\u00a0 It does so many crucial functions in our system and, of course, there are so many things that could go wrong.\u00a0 I was on the look out for the signs of a stroke&#8230;but not the signs of a heart attack.\u00a0 In the 39 years since my Mother&#8217;s death I&#8217;ve learned that heart attack symptoms can appear very differently in women than men.\u00a0 And, just as my mother did, many women discount their symptoms of pain and discomfort and march on &#8211; assuming they will just get through it.\u00a0 Those signs are less apparent than the signs of a stroke&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>shortness of breath<\/li>\n<li>weakness<\/li>\n<li>unusual fatigue<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Women also have these symptoms:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nausea<\/li>\n<li>Dizziness<\/li>\n<li>Lower chest discomfort<\/li>\n<li>Upper abdominal pressure or discomfort that may feel like indigestion<\/li>\n<li>Back pain<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>An author whose work I follow posted an experience that has haunted me.\u00a0 She had to cancel some of her appearances because she was hospitalized.\u00a0 She thought she was having a heart attack.\u00a0 Turns out she wasn&#8217;t!\u00a0 Good news.\u00a0 But the part of her story that has stayed with me is this&#8230;she was very proud of the fact that before she went to the hospital she took a shower and put on clean underwear.\u00a0 She delightedly reported that she thought her mother would be especially proud of the clean underwear part.\u00a0 In treating issues related to our one and only heart, TIME is of the essence.\u00a0 Time, TIME is far more significant than clean underwear.\u00a0 Am I being bossy on this?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 I am.<\/p>\n<p>In the month ( a whole month) set aside to paying attention to two traumatic maladies, high blood pressure and strokes, let me underscore the whole notion of Self Care.\u00a0 Every day we each invest in the legacy of our health by the choices we make on behalf of our bodies.\u00a0 Paying attention to the signs our bodies provide is an important element.\u00a0 Too often we over ride the clear and purposeful signals our bodies are sending.\u00a0 This is a great day to pause, observe and ask yourself, &#8220;What might my body be telling me about my own health matters this moment?&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thirty nine years ago today my mother died. I was thirteen years old. I heard things around the house like, &#8220;The doctor said I needed to take a higher dose of my blood pressure medication.&#8221; I had no real concept of what high blood pressure actually was. I knew enough to associate it with limited&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[165,167,166],"class_list":["post-469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-joys","category-unexpected","tag-national-high-blood-pressure-and-stroke-awareness-month","tag-symptoms-of-a-heart-attack","tag-symptoms-of-a-stroke"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>National High Blood Pressure and Stroke Awareness Month - Daily Joys and Simple Pleasures<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dailyjoys\/2011\/05\/national-high-blood-pressure-and-stroke-awareness-month.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"National High Blood Pressure and Stroke Awareness Month - Daily Joys and Simple Pleasures\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Thirty nine years ago today my mother died. I was thirteen years old. I heard things around the house like, &#8220;The doctor said I needed to take a higher dose of my blood pressure medication.&#8221; I had no real concept of what high blood pressure actually was. 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My work is often identified by my proprietary, dancing lettering. I am most known for my poem beginning, \"Courage doesn't always roar...\"I am approaching a dozen published books and continue to create, write, craft and inspire myself and others. I'm passionate about making the world a more healthy, inspired, safe place and take small actions, daily, toward that goal. 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