pablorobo

Thank you. There is a secondary story to be told here that i returned from the hospital to find my girlfriend of 7 years had had an affair with my best friend while I was inside and he is someone who I have to continue to work with. That was probably worse to deal with than the aftereffects of the operation. I have ended the relationship but it hurt very badly. I regard myself as a psychologically tough person but this did rock me a bit - and I did wonder why she had not visited me for 8 days after the op - when she did it was pretty clear to me what had happened and I simply told her the relationship was over. Sucks but I'll get over it.

Ha well here lies a tale. I am very honest in that I have taken stimulant recreational drugs for many years, drink heavily (I live in Scotland and my job requires me to host visiting artists for meals and drinks where I eat for free!), I have a stressful job (curator at a major museum) and I am often jet lagged due to international travel. If you add that I am overweight and eat too fatty food then I was an obvious candidate for this. All my own fault. That said it turns out most of my mother's family died of heart disease and I didn;t know that until last week. The docs said it could have been any of the above although of course taking cocaine isn't the best thing for your heart. I am now giving up drugs completely and drink will be moderated. I lost about a stone in hospital and I'm still dieting so perhaps this will be good for me long term.

Oh fuck off I'm a pretty hip 55 year old. :) Once i get better I challenge you to a 'trend-off'. I work as a major international art curator so I'm pretty aware of current fashion, music and art. But thanks for your good wishes!

Well If you forgive the name dropping I was showing the girlfriend of Michael Nyman the composer around this huge building before I and others went to his Queens Hall concert (I've been working with Michael for over a year now)> I suddenly became very light headed and dizzy and had to hold the door frame to not fall over. I then later that night after drinking a G&T given to me by a friend who owns a gin distillery here in this museum (this is an unusual place - 540 rooms, 130,000 sq feet with a brewery, distillery, lots of galleries and theatre spaces - in fact a former veterinary college) I had a further 3 dizzy spells in the next 4 hours. I went to bed and met other artists the next morning and had a total of 3 more dizzy spells when I realised there was something very seriously wrong. I started to sweat and the water was pouring out of my pores. I got my then g/f to drive me to the hospital and I found it hard to give her directions. I walked into the A&E alone and presented myself to the desk. They had me take a seat and 15 mins later I was seen - I did think that was quite a long time given how bad I probably looked. They then hit me hard - my heart was beating at 222 beats per minute and later they told me that 190 is usually enough to kill someone. They took two hours to get my heartbeat down to c. 90bpm - giving me various drugs including magnesium which apparently is quite toxic and used only when it is very necessary.

May I thank you for this - I found this very helpful. I live with someone who exhibits every one of these symptoms almost exactly as you describe in much of her life (including non-flushing, poor hygene) - and of course I find that at times very difficult to deal with (thankfully, without painting myself as a paragon of virtue, I am very patient and I don't lose my temper very easily). That said she can keep a job and is socially somewhat able in short bursts although she finds it very hard to keep friends for long. And her past life is exactly as you describe - uncaring and thoughtless parents who showed her little love and affection even early in her life as a child. They still don't. Also when I first met her she lived a life that depended on short term often exploitative relationships - I stopped that but that in itself was not the only problems she faced. She is definitely very motivated by immediate gain even today and finds it hard to show consistent affection (short displays of what most people would call 'loving behaviour' can be reversed in seconds and her behaviour turn towards anger or even physical abuse very quickly (nothing I can't deal with but I do find it irritating if I am honest although she is a very strong and tall athletic woman). On occasion i have thought of ending the relationship but it has been 5 years now and I also would worry about her if I did end it - there are good things in this relationship even though at times it is very fraught and on balance I have up to now always decided not to end things. That may or may not change but at the moment I feel it will continue for a while longer. And a minor irony of sorts in all this is that I was originally trained as a psychologist/neurophysiologist about 30 years ago but clearly this aspect of the medical model (RAD) was not well developed or well known at all when I studied (I'm no longer working or researching in psychology) and I did not know about it when I was involved in the field. Thanks to your statement above (and to other posters here including the OP) I can now do a little background reading myself and be better informed as to strategies (if there are any) although I accept from your very good posting that repairing this damage is not easy and I do not expect ever to see radical change in my g/f's behaviours: only at best some modification. If I could give you more than one up vote I would - but then you did not give your time up here I am sure to be a karma whore but as a decent helpful person. Thank you again for this knowledge. Edit: tidied up grammar, spelling and added one fact.