Strokecast

  When I had my stroke at 46, it took a little while for the medical team to settle on the cause. I suppose that's a good thing. We don't want them to rush to a conclusion. Ultimately, they concluded the probable cause was a history of high blood pressure. It didn't make sense to me at the time. In 2015 I developed high blood pressure, AKA hypertension, but I didn't know. That's the thing about high blood pressure -- it doesn't hurt. There was no pain. I only found out because during the last week of December, I began have massive 30 minute pouring nosebleeds every other day. I checked my blood pressure on a home blood pressure machine, and it registered more than 200 over 160. That and the random surprise bleeding got me into the doctor's office. They measured my BP at 162/102. So it had dropped from apparently ER levels by that time. Over the course of the next few months, we worked to get my BP under control through medication and some diet tweaks. By March of 2016, my BP was coming in at 105/75. Be Februa