A lot of great things have happened since my last post. I went to the Cook Islands and Tahita in November-December 2012. The Cooks were for a couple of OC-6 events: the Vaka Eiva on Rarotonga and the Motu 2 Motu on Aitutaki. The former is competitive, we came first in masters women, and the latter is for fun, we came third in a throw-together crew. Both islands were completely unique and amazingly beautiful.
2 days before I left, I had gone to the doctor for follow-up on chest congestion and a cough I'd had for the past year. She had been tracking my blood pressure which was extremely high for at least the few months we'd been paying attention and stated that she couldn't condone my trip to race because all indications were that I'd stroke out in the middle of the ocean. Obviously she couldn't actually stop me from going but her insistence alarmed me enough that I agreed to do any tests she suggested to prove my fitness. I spent the next day and a half at Trillium Health Centre performing stress tests, blood tests, respiratory tests, chest x-rays, ECGs, ultrasounds, etc. Everything came back okay but my blood pressure did not go down to an acceptable level. At her insistence, I filled a few prescriptions before I left and asked one of my teammates, a paramedic, if they could bring a blood pressure cuff to monitor my bp. All very frustrasting and, at the time, things I considered pointless. At the end of it all, I'm really glad she was paying attention.
So Cooks and Tahiti were obviously amazing and a great time. I kept hand-written logs while I was there and have them somewhere at home for entry at some point.
