Please excuse the bittiness of this post. I'm trying to think my way through so many things just now
The doctors have spoken: hypertensive retinopathy caused by high blood pressure. Tablets and 2 weeks off work.
Except of course it isn't as simple as that. I have been reading up on Hypertension and what I'm reading scares me.
There are multiple causes and he scores highly on almost all of them. they include stress, irregular exercise, poor & irregular diet, binge drinking, smoking and Vitamin D deficiency. My partner scores highly on all but one.
He works for the emergency services, in a high stress role. He works long hours, they don't get the breaks they are entitled to, so he can't eat sensibly at work. Because of the shift work he doesn't really eat sensibly when he gets home either. Because of the nights, he doesn't get enough sunlight so doesn't get enough vitamin D. Add to that a traumatic divorce, our sometimes explosive relationship and a fairly consistent history of emotional body-blows dealt by life and you have a man who has had a tendency to use alcohol as a crutch too. On the plus side - he's never smoked, runs and has been trying to get fitter.
From what I've been reading the eye bleed is a fairly extreme symptom and could indicate that things have gone rather far. He has certainly been suffering from a lot of headaches recently.
It was only a couple of months ago that I was pleading with him to change the way he lived for his children's sake. Now it turns out that he is a recipe for the stroke I feared.
I have to work out how to help without making the stress greater.
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