Yesterday was kind of a lost day. It's discombobulating for me to see a doctor, and so I rarely do, since I rarely have reason to. But yesterday was also the appointment for my annual check-up (check-in?) with the cardiologist who has been looking after me, so to speak, since my emergency and totally unexpected five-day stay at the Ottawa Heart Institute four years ago where it was discovered that my haemoglobin level was perilously low, enough to require two blood transfusions, caused by a bleeding ulcer on my stomach wall. Caused, you guessed it, by long-term use of a 81mg Aspirin daily dose.

I have a leaky heart valve that concerns the good doctor. I believe I've had it since day one of my introduction to life. So yesterday I was treated to the joy of an echogram and after that an EKG (electrocardiogram), that the cardiologist could study to determine whether there was any change in that leaky valve's condition, which there wasn't.

At my earlier, prolonged hospital stay to monitor my heart, I had undergone an angioplasty in an effort for the cardiologist to completely understand what had happened to cause fainting spells and physical weakness that were the symptoms I experienced as a result of that bleeding stomach ulcer. The cardiologist who had performed the angioplasty informed me that there was plaque in my main heart artery, but not of an unusual amount for someone of my age. That too was an inheritance from my father who had arteriosclerosis.

Which is why, along with my elevated blood pressure condition and high cholesterol, that my cardiologist wants me to continue taking aspirin daily, with pantoprazole to line my stomach wall tissue against the acidic effect of the Aspirin, both of which I had on my own initiative stopped taking a year ago when a blood test revealed very low levels of B12 vitamin as a result of long-term use of pantoprazole. There are always side-effects of a deleterious nature, some serious, some not, in taking any kind of drugs. It's termed the iatrogenic effect; one drug often causing a condition requiring another drug to treat, which also causes a 'condition'.

It isn't a pleasant place to be, and most people do their best to avoid having to visit a hospital. There is a constant stream of people entering and exiting. And for the most part they are elderly and frail, coming in singly and in couples, in wheelchairs, or ambulating with the assistance of walkers, or in the company of those who render them physical aid. This is life, and these are people who are suffering from the ultimate chronic condition; old age creeping upon us, gifting us with failing organs to complicate whatever is left of our treasured lives.