I am Joe Blog’s Left Ventricle

So I’m sitting in the Doctor’s office with a black eye and very limited use of my left arm, well entire left side of my body really explaining the story to her. I am trying to explain that the high blood pressure thing came about before all the injuries…

Me: “So they took my blood pressure and it was high - it was 155/100 on one arm and 145/100 on the other. They ordered a bunch of tests… did they send the results through?”

Dr: “Nothing has come yet” ah, the idiotic red tape of the medical establishment…

Me: “Well anyway they advised me to make some lifestyle changes - minimise my salt intake and get a lot more strenuous exercise, so I’ve reduced my salt as much as possible (wow can’t believe how much salt is in everything I buy, amazing once you look)  and I’ve bought a bike with the intention of riding to work, and that’s where the plot thickens, you see-”

Dr: “I can see where this is going…”

Me: “Yes because on my way to work on friday morning my front wheel slipped into some tram tracks and I came off - at considerable speed…”

Which is indeed true… I ploughed into the concrete road having just hit fastest speed I’ve ever gone on my new bike, and despite hitting the ground with enough force to smash the keys off the keyring in my pocket, and tear the skin off my elbows and knees through the thick clothing I wore, I broke no bones. Stranger still, I had no concussion at all, despite managing to hit the ground with my head. I was wearing a helmet but it covers only the top half of my head, my left eyebrow managed to strike the ground and my whole head bounced with a resounding crack… I have a black eye which is now thankfully fading.

They x-rayed my left shoulder because I cannot currently fully use my left arm - it behaves like a serious muscle injury (can’t use the deltoid much but every other direction of motion other than straight out from my side works as normal) and from the x-rays you can see why nothing broke… my bones are huge! My upper arm bone (humerus) appears to be 3cm thick and my ribs looks like they’re from a cow. I guess I have a nice thick skull too:)

Which is why I have lots of VERY sore muscles and indeed the pain in my rib region is only just now beginning to peak, but no broken bones.

Anyway, I have two new sources of fascinating data:

1. A blood pressure measuring device lent to me by a colleague at work, which tells me my blood pressure is currently… 126/76 which is normal, even a little on the low side - which is odd because the only lifestyle change I’ve managed to make is that I’m eating way less salt - I haven’t had much exercise at all since wrecking my body
2. The salt content in most processed foods, indicated by the sodium content. This came as a rude shock to me. I had a high salt diet without ever adding salt to a single thing I ate. The noodles I used to eat regularly have an entire day’s _maximum_ salt intake in them, or 2303mg of sodium. I used to consider those a snack… now they fit into the category “toxic substances not to be eaten” and the two packets sitting my pantry are… doomed to disappointment I expect. The healthy-seeming tinned vegetables and steak I used to eat have 817mg ‘per serve’, enough for an entire day. Don’t even ask about the sausages I used to bbq, bacon I used to eat or even ham, these things all have what I now regard as poisonous concentrations of salt.

And lordy, once you start reading the packets for sodium content, it opens your eyes. I always used to read for fat, sugar, energy value etc but when you throw salt in the mix things get really depressing. Virtually everything I bought had lots of salt in it. Even the fucking steamed veges I buy have a reasonable serve, 340mg or something per packet. Why? I don’t know maybe it helps with the freezing because fresh veges have virtually no salt.

The only cheese without loads of salt in it that I know if appears to be swiss cheese. I’ve eaten very little cheese at all since finding that out. Almost every kind of processed food is full of it. Nasty!

What have I been eating? Well I’ve come up with a low-salt version of the bolognaise I make that still tastes very good, have bbq’d chicken breast with herbs on it (that’s not bad at all!) I’ve had more fruit and nuts than I used to eat and have kept to simple sandwiches with unsalted meats and salad on them for lunches. And cereal, thankfully most cereal I eat was already low salt and there’s bugger-all in milk.

But the whole thing is possibly a wild goose chase. My doctor told me two weeks of good diet and a bit of extra exercise should never have had the effect it did, and it’s more probable my blood pressure was temporarily up due to a virus or something at the time. I find this hilarious, especially when I get stuck in agony trying to get a t-shirt on or off and stand there giggling with it half over my face and unable to move my muscles in a way to get it on or off without searing pain interfering.

As to the rest of my life, I’ve got next week off work, which has been great lately anyway (hooray) and my love life has had a tumultuous few weeks before settling back into a ghost-town, which is exactly what I want and need right now. That and the week off. It’s going to be good. Although I’m betting I’ll be bored and lonely by mid-monday… beginning to be already, although it’s the kind of nerdy introverted loneliness whereby the thought of actually hanging around with people is even more repellent. 99% of people anyway…

…an unfinished post from May I decided to abruptly complete and publish for no good reason

It began with Shadow Demons. The Evil One summoned them in groups of four, and they shifted between the planes at will, conquering city after city in both Myror and Arcanor.

But it didn’t stop there. Soon The Evil One’s minions clashed with the borders of other empires. Other great, dark sorcerers with their own powerful magic and armies. Yet the will of The Evil One was great, his terrible mind tireless, ruthless, and utterly bent on the destruction of the known worlds.

Deeper into the evil magic of Necromancy he delved, until he could summon Wraiths. Yet his thirst for evil to unleash upon the world was not satisfied. Deeper still he delved, and summoned Death Knights, Demons, and finally Greater Demons, who could summon Demons themselves.

He cursed the world with his minions and his dark magic. Every city he crushed became a pool of slaves to sacrifice in dark rituals. Upon the lands of his enemies he visited great blights, causing famine, disease, and misery. He cursed the very sky itself and it became eternal night. His ever growing undead horde, freed from the Sun’s restrictive influence marched on skeletal feet a million strong, and conquered more and more of the worlds.

He cursed Death itself, so even as his enemies fell dead, they rose again in armies of ghouls and zombies to serve The Evil One that they had fought against in life.

Finally, he destroyed the worlds in a blazing orgy of dark fury. No single soul escaped him, and nothing built by the hands of any race was spared total destruction. The worlds lay in ruins, haunted by the fading, tortured spirits of the dead, frozen under a dead black sky from which no dawn would ever come.

In late May, 1998 my father died. I don’t remember the exact date, the few days around that time are a complete, hideous blur to me. But I do recall destroying the world at least a dozen times in the weeks that followed in a strategy game called “Master of Magic”. A strange response perhaps, but then I am a strange person.