![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/bpmeasuring.jpg\")
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For quite some time, I\u2019ve usually been that type of guy that just never goes to the doctor, unless something is actively wrong.\u00a0 Never did any annual checkups, physicals or anything other than eye exams or going to urgent care for what always seems like prednisone whenever I go.\u00a0 I often used to say this stemmed from not wanting to miss out on work on account of the long stretch when I was freelancing and contracting, and when I wasn\u2019t working then I wasn\u2019t earning, but the truth is that even when I had landed full-time work with actual benefits, I still didn\u2019t go then either, even if I were paying for it.<\/span><\/p>\n Then I got married, and that didn\u2019t really change, except for the fact that I now had a wife that encouraged me to go, but I still made excuses and dragged my feet and resisted going, because I just didn\u2019t really want to.\u00a0 I felt fine, I exercised regularly, and I didn\u2019t eat like a shithead too<\/em> much, so I never felt like it was worth going since I felt fine, strong and healthy.<\/span><\/p>\n But then I had children, and I crossed into 40, so I finally relented and made the effort to at the very least, have an annual, just to make sure things were copacetic.\u00a0 And last year, it was about what I had suspected, I was pretty much fine, with no real concerns.\u00a0 I had little reason to think it was going to be any different this year, but if that were the case then I wouldn\u2019t be writing this post now, would I?<\/span><\/p>\n The TL;DR is that it turns out that I\u2019ve put on a not-insubstantial amount of weight, and my blood pressure is kind of high.\u00a0 The thing is that despite the weight gain, my clothes all fit the same, save for some tightness in the chests of my shirts, but my pants all still fit, I still use the same rung on my belts, and I don\u2019t really feel any different than I did physically a year ago, or longer.<\/span><\/p>\n But I don\u2019t want to be the asshole who gets all \u201cuuhhhhhh muscle weighs more than fat brah<\/em>\u201d and humble brag that I\u2019ve been hitting the weights, and that my weight gain is solely based on the fact that I\u2019ve been going to the gym with consistency over the last two years, versus the nearly two-year stretch in which I dropped a lot of muscle mass because of COVID affecting my ability to hit a gym.\u00a0 Of course, I did hit my share of lazy stretches where my household eats a bunch of fast food or dines out\/takes out more than we really should, but I do like to believe that some of my weight gain really is having put on some muscle mass back on over the last year.<\/span><\/p>\n The bigger thing though, is the blood pressure reading, that was high enough to where the tech and my doctor wanted to point it out as being high.\u00a0 My knee-jerk reaction was to ask just how much correlation there is between BP and stress, to which the answer was a high one, and I feel like I already know why I\u2019m having elevated blood pressure.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s no sugar-coating it, my life is pretty difficult these days, as far as I\u2019m concerned.\u00a0 Ironically, work is probably the least stressful part of my life, and as much as I bitched about having to go into the office four days a week, I\u2019m actually pretty chill while at the office, and I take a tremendous amount of solace in knowing that I can go to the gym every day I go to there, and try and improve myself in some facet.<\/span><\/p>\n But parenting two young toddlers, chasing them around, and trying to stave off their boredom and all the rigors of parenting two in general, that really wears me out.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t had a real break from parenting since like December, and I don\u2019t remember the last time I got to sleep in was.\u00a0 Maybe it was December.<\/span><\/p>\n I get up every single day at 7 am, regardless of if it\u2019s a weekday or weekend, it\u2019s all the same in the life of parenting.\u00a0 I don\u2019t get nearly enough help, and I\u2019ve had to come clean to myself that one of my biggest flaws is that I expect people to read my mind or read the room and see that I\u2019m burnt out, and when nobody does, it burns me out even more, all of which is probably leading to my general levels of stress and subsequent elevation of my blood pressure.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m always worried about money, because I\u2019m Korean and Koreans are inherently financially cognizant, and I always fear about being unable to support the lifestyle that is wanted for my kids, and being able to pay the bills and just trying to keep my head above water and feeling like I\u2019m not doing a very good job at it.\u00a0 Again, I wish I had more help in this regard, but until I really try to come up with solutions on my own and present it in a digestible manner, I\u2019m still going to swirl around in this pool with no real progress in sight.<\/span><\/p>\n Needless to say, I endure a lot of stress on a regular basis, and I don\u2019t think I really need to think hard to know why I have blood pressure issues right now.\u00a0 The doc asked me to get a BP monitor and take daily readings and log them, and let her know in a month or so to see what\u2019s up.\u00a0 I did, and I\u2019ve been mortified to see that the first few readings not only haven\u2019t been getting any better, but they\u2019re (I think) worse than they were when I was at my annual.<\/span><\/p>\n And this is where I circle back to wishing that I just didn\u2019t know anything about this in the first place.\u00a0 Physically, I still feel fine.\u00a0 I still run regularly, which is my barometer to know if something is up, because when I\u2019m feeling off, it\u2019s reflected in my running ability, but I\u2019m still running a sub-30 5K, and I feel that my stamina and endurance is good as it ever has been, if not a little reduced for the fact that I\u2019m aging and I\u2019m not pushing myself like I\u2019m 27 anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n I feel like knowing that I\u2019m measuring high BPs stresses me out further, and I\u2019ve noticed that ensuing BP tests because the first one was obviously bullshit usually come out worse than the previous one, and it\u2019s evident that it gets in my head that BP is an issue, and it feels like the mere thought of it causes me to measure worse each successive time.<\/span><\/p>\n Even before my annual, and doing bloodwork, and seeing that my cholesterol was also a little higher, I\u2019ve been cleaning up my eating habits and making an earnest attempt to drop a little weight, just because I don\u2019t like the fact that I\u2019ve crept past the 200 lb. threshold again and am closer to a former president\u2019s fictional weight than I am where I like to be able to say I\u2019m at.<\/span><\/p>\n But the fact of the matter is, regardless of how melted down I generally am these days, I was probably a modicum happier not knowing about the physical specifics of my state.\u00a0 I know that that\u2019s not a great perspective, and that preventive care can help a laundry list of bad ailments from becoming a reality, but on the daily, it\u2019s really fucking up my juju, and regardless of knowing I\u2019m still doing the right thing, I still wish I were back to the state of life where I didn\u2019t know.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For quite some time, I\u2019ve usually been that type of guy that just never goes to the doctor, unless something is actively wrong.\u00a0 Never did any annual checkups, physicals or anything other than eye exams or going to urgent care for what always seems like prednisone whenever I go.\u00a0 I often used to say this … Continue reading Dad Brog (#119): Sometimes I\u2019d rather not know<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,193,206,120,109,207,192,177,49],"class_list":["post-49565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-dad","tag-family","tag-fat-people","tag-gym","tag-health","tag-kids","tag-mythical","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49567,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49565\/revisions\/49567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}