Sunday, April 07, 2013

To everyone reading this: take a minute and get your blood pressure checked.

Today would have been my brother's 60th Birthday.

I say "would have been" because he died of a stroke brought on by the usual reasons; primarily smoking (Both tobacco and pot)  some six years ago at the age of 53.

I had to pull the plug on him.

I won't go into the rather horrific, almost unimaginable details.  I will say that he had high blood pressure... very high... and it was untreated.  In fact, it was plus 200 in the ICU at Harborview.

He didn't know.  And he didn't know because that skinny little runt never had it checked.

Find the time... soon... and get it checked.  You won't know you have it until it's typically, and tragically, too late.

Our oldest brother was struck down by a stroke some 13 years ago.  He's still alive, if you can call it that, but I have to wonder: what if he had his BP checked a few years before he suffered this stroke?

Take the time.  Find a way.  Do it soon.

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