Unsafe at Any Size

We keep hearing how dangerous it is to be heavy and how much money we’d save on health care if everyone had a healthy weight.  But can weight loss be hazardous to your health?  Sometimes!

My husband Joel has lost 75 lbs, and this has generally been a Very Good Thing.  He loves wearing smaller clothes and playing golf better than before. But recently, he had an episode where we thought he may have had a heart attack. It turned out that his blood pressure medicine was depressing his heart rate so low that when he was in a crowded, stuffy room he passed out.

He’s doing better, now.  His black eye is turning colors like the fall leaves (a lovely shade of red-yellow at the moment).  He’s monitoring his blood pressure and pulse, and thankfully the latter is staying higher than 50.  But if you’re losing weight and if you’re taking medicines, be sure you monitor them carefully! Joel was seeing his Dr regularly and still had this scary episode.

Joel, feeling better

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.  But fortunately, when my DH Joel fell yesterday he wasn’t nearly as big, and didn’t fall nearly as hard as he could have.

He’s back from the hospital now, but we’ve had a scary two days. He was covering an assignment at the hospital when he collapsed there.  The medical staff couldn’t find a pulse or see whether he was breathing, so called a code blue on him and performed CPR on him for less than a minute.

He is ok.  He was admitted to the hospital, but didn’t have a heart attack.  They scanned his brain (he has one, without blood clots), and took Xrays of his spine (he has one of those, too, intact).  He has two cuts over his eye they stitched up and a black eye so he looks like a boxer.

We don’t know why he passed out, but we’re happy that he’s home. I’m happy that he’s been taking such good care of himself that when I got the call to come I didn’t think he had a heart attack, but passed out from seeing the procedure.  I’m glad that he weighed less and exercised more so perhaps that’s what protected his back. And it was certainly easier for the staff at the hospital to care for him.

Welcome home, hon.