From the Heart- Experiencing the Downside of Aspirin + Some Updates!

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Hi everyone!  Happy Monday!  I am dedicating today's post to giving y'all a health update.

So, I've mentioned this before, but I'm on a couple of medications for my heart.  And as y'all know, medications have side effects 😬.  I mentioned my experience in dealing with a side effect of metorprolol tartate in this post, but I've never told you guys about a downside of aspirin.  I want to preface this post by saying that this is my personal experience with this medication.  I am not posting this to scare people away from taking aspirin, but to openly share my experience with it.  Never stop taking any medications you are on unless you are permitted to do so by your doctor.

Normally, I have no problems with taking aspirin; it's just part of my morning routine and life with a CHD.  But recently, I experienced an annoying side effect of aspirin:  my blood taking a while to clot 💉😬.  So the other day, I accidentally jabbed my toe into the sharp part of the trundle bed in my room.  I thought that I had just stubbed my toe, so I winced in pain for a second and then went on with life.  Then, a few minutes later, I saw drops of blood all over the floor.  It turns out that I hadn't stubbed my toe; a bit of the top of the toe has opened up and was bleeding 😬.  Fortunately, I am not scared of blood (unless there is a profuse amount), but the floor looked like a mini murder scene from one of those detective movies 😆.  Thankfully, the bleeding stopped, but not after applying some pressure on the cut for a while.  However, a few days later, the cut opened up, so murder scene number two made its debut 😆.  Thankfully, the cut is healing up nicely now, it was just a little frustrating 😭.  However, I am thankful for medications that help keep my  heart pumping strong, so these minor frustrations that come along with them aren't a big deal 😉.

Also, it's been a while since I've updated you on my pacemaker!  As far as I know, it has been working great, but I'm supposed to send an interrogation of it soon to the medical center.  In case you were wondering, interrogating a pacemaker does not mean that you ask it questions 😉; it just means that you use a handy dandy home-use monitoring system every 3 months to collect all of the data from the pacemaker to send to the medical center and pacemaker company.  Why do I do this?  Well, by doing this, professionals make sure that my pacemaker is working correctly and all the settings are proper.  By God's grace, I haven't had any problems with my pacemaker (minus the incision area getting infected), so I have great optimism that this reading will be good!  I will let y'all know if something is wrong, so if I don't mention the reading in a future post, just take no news for good news 😉.

Lastly, I have an update about my medical bracelet. (Above, I linked to the post that gives more details about the bracelet.)  I've had my bracelet for almost a year now.  A little background info-  I didn't have a medical bracelet for nearly all of my life, probably because my health had been great (except for the need for a pacemaker) until my atrial tachychardia episode.  Looking back, I think that that tough experience was a hint that I needed to own my heart condition by seriously owning up to my physical weakness.  Part of doing this involved getting a medical bracelet so that in an emergency like that, the paramedics and other medical professionals would know my health condition.  So last summer, before my trip to Europe, I got my first medical bracelet!  Just recently, a letter came in the mail from the medical bracelet company that I need to renew my membership, which shouldn't be too big of a deal but is something important that I should do ASAP!

I look forward to posting again on Friday!