I Have Learned . . .

I have learned that when I get some kind of crazy response on the computer to go to Bing or Google and ask a question.  The answer is usually there somewhere.

Most recent is I kept getting a message that said the Internet Explorer was not working yet it was.  And the message of course popped up in the middle of the window being very obnoxious and persistent.  Again and again it was occurring.

So I  Googled it and sure enough I found five or six others had similar experiences.  That tells me it is not unusual and that there has to be a fix.  Sure enough there was a fix.  One had to "reset" Internet Explorer.  And there was step by step instructions from a real person from Windows.  The first procedure did not work but the second one given did indeed work and I got Internet Explorer 11 reset and the irritant disappeared.

I recently got a medical report from my Cardiologist.  And I took it apart literally phrase by phrase.  I found the most innocuous phrase was the key one and what I thought was the bad one was not bad at all.  The amazing thing was all of those phrases popped up when they were typed into Google or Bing.  There was even a phrase about the shape of the pulse shown on the EKG that indicated an issue, precursor of heart disease.  The report was from a Nuclear Stress test.

Those two search engines worked like a charm.  And yes, there was some cause for concern in the Cardiologist's report.  I now understand why he sent me off to do Computed Tomography Angiogram or CTA.  That is a non-invasive close examination of my heart and its arteries.

A CTA is a fancy name for a modern computer run X-ray machine that is coupled into a EKG.  The EKG tells the X-ray machine when the heart is resting and the X-ray machine takes pictures of the heart and the surrounding arteries that feed the heart muscle.  And the CTA takes very narrow pictures, like one 256th of an inch width.  This is very precise and non-invasive look at your (and in my case my) heart arteries.  It can detect both hard and soft plaque in your arteries.  Neither one is good.  In my case it turns out that I have Arteriosclerosis or Atherosclerosis - hardening of the arteries.  There is some blockage that ranges from 30% to 50% blockage in several locations.  At this point nothing is done except taking drugs such as Metoprolol (Beta Blocker), baby sized Aspirin (blood thinner and known preventer of heart attacks), Analapril (Ace Inhibitor for blood pressure reduction) and exercise.  Nothing will remove the Calcium and in time I may end up with a Stent installed but not yet.

The material of great concern is Calcium build up that keeps the arteries from being flexible.  I have so far good blood flow but definite hardening of arteries.  Since our blood carries at all times 1% or more Calcium, it will continue be it ever so slow (I hope).  There also seems to be an ever so slight build up of Calcium on the left ventricle heart valve (not unexpected with all the other Calcium build up).  The blood flow numbers are in the satisfactory range but not that great.

So I read the reports in detail, and checked all the details.  I would not have had such access without a computer and being linked to the Internet.  And I have acquired more words for my vocabulary like "Stenosis" which means narrowing.  So if one hears he or she has stenosis, then you know you are getting plaque build up around the heart (not good).

My risk for a heart attack increases.  Of course something will eventually kill us all.  Perhaps a fatal heart attack is better than a prolonged cancer event.  No matter, we do not get out of this world alive, some ways of departing are better than others.

And perhaps my curiosity and the Internet are not such good things for me to explore.  Hmmmm.