Peter Reynolds

About four months ago I embarked on a course of medication for high blood pressure.  For some time I’d been warned that I was marginal with a reading of 140/90 so I decided it was time to start looking after myself.  I was a heavy smoker and drinker.  My only redeeming factor was that I walk with my dogs every day for about an hour – and that’s vigorous walking, up and down steep hills.

I was started on a calcium antagonist and within a few days I had virtually lost the will to live.  I had no energy at all.  I’d lost all motivation.  In the most degrading epsiode of all, one morning I found myself prostrate on the sofa watching “Homes Under the Hammer”.  That’s when I knew it was serious.

I took myself straight off that poison and went back to see my GP.   My blood pressure reading was now 168/100.  He advised a change to a thiazide diuretic.  Being the not so patient patient that I am, I insisted on a full explanation as far as my “O” level science was capable of understanding.

This time it was more subtle.  My energy, motivation and enthusiasm was sapped gradually.  As my positive life signs went down my thirst rocketed to absurd proportions.  After a month or so I was regularly up six times a night with a raging thirst and a full bladder.  When I cleaned out the space behind the passenger seat in my car I had two carrier bags full of empty drink bottles.

In the meantime, I gave up smoking.  I give the pharmaceutical industry credit for this.  A month of patches and a nicotine inhaler weaned me off the evil weed easily.  About this I am both pleased and proud.  I have at least one  “cigarette moment” every day but I am not going back to it.  Although I can recognise no physiological benefit at all (if anything I seem to get more breathless now), I am much richer and everything around me is cleaner as a result.

The next visit to my GP saw my pressure reduced to 150/95.  Better but not good enough.  He advised me to start taking an ACE inhibitor as well as the diuretic.

I researched ACE inhibitors and was horrified at the range of side effects and contraindications.  Then, suddenly, coming fast up behind and undertaking me before I knew what was happening (forgive my blushes) I discovered I was impotent.  One embarrassing date and then a dawning realisation that nothing was happening, even involuntarily.  No more waking up with a big itch!

I’m not ready to give up my sex life just yet.  The one and only criticism I have of my GP is that he never warned me of this side effect.  I have also cut my drinking by a huge proportion.  From a half bottle of whisky upwards a day I am now comfortable with a single glass of wine or a small beer.  In the last few weeks my motivation has gone again.  I can’t be bothered with long walks with the dogs anymore.  Just half an hour out in the mornings and I’m exhausted.  I’m not interested in anything.   My occasional lunchtime nap has become a necessity.  Sometimes, even before midday I feel so exhausted, I just can’t wait to go back to bed.

Four days ago I stopped the diuretic and yesterday I felt like I had got my life back.  I have so much more energy.  I’m enthusiastic as I can’t remember for months.  I fair romped up the hill with the dogs this morning.  My thirst is calming down and I was only up twice last night.  My mojo isn’t back yet but I can feel a little twitch developing.  Come Christmas time I advise you to lock up your daughters once again.

The punch line? My blood pressure is now 170/110.  I may be heading for a massive stroke or heart attack any minute but at least I’ll die happy.  Despite giving up smoking and decimating my alcohol consumption, my blood pressure is much worse than when I started.  So what does that tell me?

I have no idea at all but at least now I have a smile on my face!

Today I started a new blog on Paradise Valley, the beautiful heaven on earth where I am so fortunate to live.

This will be where I write about walking my dogs , Capone and Carla, and all our adventures in deepest Dorset.

Today I launched a new website.

www.leadingedgepersonaltechnology.com

I’m back.  Apologies to those who have missed my posts.  Thanks to the hundreds who have asked where I am.

Truth is that I was under the cloud of a vile, vicious, unforgiving flu virus.  If anything ever deserved the unremitting attentions of the Israeli Army and everything that Mossad has to offer then it was this.  Misery, depression, lack of motivation – nothing could have been more unforgiving and merciless in its attack.

I survived.  Perhaps Palestine will not.

As I emerged from under this dark cloud there was one thing that helped me through.  I have read about it for  months.  The HBO series, The Wire.  I have seen it described as the best thing ever on television.  These superlatives seemed different from most and as I immersed myself in the stories of Baltimore I understood why.

This is magnificent television. Wonderful characterisations not based on “star quality” or reputation but on acting ability.  Utterly credible dialogue, surely much of it improvised.

What seems at first glance as just another American cop show is revealed as the very best in drama, capturing every nuance of the human condition.

I pray for the people of Palestine.  I curse the evil Jews. I look for hope in mutual understanding through drama like “The Wire”.

I have become an immense fan of Hugh’s recently.  River Cottage was always a programme that I enjoyed but with the assistance of the marvellous torrent site (forget the iPlayer) www.thebox.bz   he has become an obsession.

If I need a little relaxation, a little soothing, noone does it better than Hugh.  It is, perhaps, ironic, that he shares the name of my younger brother who is the most sour, miserable character, for Mr F-W always lifts my spirits and inspires me towards a gentler life and to chop my onions, crush my garlic and delicately simmer my vegetables.

I confess that I do not always hold entirely true to his philosophy.  My pungent tomato soup tonight was nurtured from my homegrown coriander but the remaining ingredients were Tesco’s onions, garlic and tinned tomatoes and it tasted bloody marvellous.

It looks as if Emsworth is to see the back of me shortly – credit crunch, buy-to-let mortgage, landlord’s wife is pregnant – and I am inspired towards Dorset.  My clifftop writer’s retreat, above the crashing surf, my dogs, my garden, etc, etc.  Protest not! I am paid to dream and to chronicle my ambition and that is where it now lies.

This very week I am travelling west (as every young man should) and hoping that my nirvana is ahead.  I have set my sights betwen Lyme Regis and Swanage and somewhere there I intend to find my new home.

Peter Reynolds is a writer, communications advisor and proud Welshman. He lives in a small town called Emsworth, between Portsmouth and Chichester on the south coast of England. After “dropping out” from life as a hippy musician, Peter experimented with direct sales and the motor trade before training as a copywriter and eventually making it to the top of his profession as a creative director with Saatchi & Saatchi. Along the way he developed special expertise in technology and healthcare working with clients such as IBM, Hewlett Packard, GSK and the Department of Health. He also worked as a freelance journalist writing for just about every PC magazine then on the market and had a weekly column in The Independent based on the simple idea of riding a bike but ranging across subjects such as politics, sport, technology and the media. Since the 1990s he has worked as a consultant to organisations such as Nokia, the British Army and Pinewood Studios. In 2004 he established Leading Edge Personal Technology as “the magazine for technology enthusiasts”. He continues to write on a wide range of subjects.