It's Clearing, Somewhat

After carefully reading lots of information about the circumstances leading up to my hospitalization I think I understand what happened.

There's no doubt that the diving incident brought some other circumstances to the forefront. However it appears the primary cause for kidney failure was extremely low blood pressure aggravated by the extreme diving conditions.

I was originally prescribed 10mg of Lisinopril which after a month or so was bumped to 20mg. This got my blood pressure to about 120/80 and seemed to work well. After a few months I had adjusted nicely to it. Initially, the Lisinopril slowed my heart rate and really limited my cycling activities.

If you can't get your heart rate up, you can't pump enough blood to keep the muscles going. It can be very frustrating at times. With this dosage it appeared my days of cycling would be limited to longer slower rides. Of course this is good for my general health but gone was my limited ability to try and climb big hills at a snappy pace or try to hold my place in a very brisk paceline.

On top of this I had recently been prescribed .4mg of Tamsulosin, better known by its popular name Flomax. Hey, I'm getting older and it's not easy to "hold it" as long as I could years ago. However, Tamsulosin also lowers your blood pressure.

The last bit of this was my weight. During 2012 I slowly gained some weight that I finally committed to losing. By the time Saturday the 16th rolled around I had lost ten pounds and had another ten to go. However, this also served to lower my blood pressure, although this is good. Very good.

The combination of two medications and the weight loss had probably lowered my blood pressure to the low side of acceptable numbers, 110/65 at rest. Nothing to be concerned about at all. However, throw in the extreme conditions of a failed dive computer on a deep dive which caused a decompression violation and an exceedingly difficult swim back to shore and you have the ingredients for disaster.

Not having a backup computer or set of gauges was the final straw when my primary computer failed. Of course, things like this should not fail. Period.

The final chapter is the return of the failed computer to Sherwood. Fortunately their headquarters is just a few miles from home so when I called them and sent them the dive data they immediately offered to replace the unit; after all it was still in warranty. When I arrived to do the switch the person that facilitated the exchange said "Yeah, I've seen this before."

YEAH, I'VE SEEN THIS BEFORE???" You're kidding aren't you. Just like that nonchalantly saying you're not the first one to almost die because of this problem.

So I have a new Sherwood Wisdom and I am honestly pondering whether I should pursue a legal solution. I've still got tingling in my lower extremities, gave up a week of work and possibly worst of all, I have that uneasy feeling about trusting my new Sherwood Wisdom. What would you do?