When my wife and I found ourselves in the portion of our lives where we were bringing up young children, our three youngsters were not permitted to use the big "S" word. Nope, the big "S" word simply wasn't allowed in our home. Our children were not allowed to call each other or anybody else-"stupid." I know, you might just feel that there are a lot of other words that need to be disallowed in a household before that one, and there were, but "stupid" was definitely one that was not tolerated.

That's one reason that I began thinking about that word in terms of my own personal lifestyle and discipline routines a a week or so ago. At the age of 54, there happen to be several prescribed medications that I have to take as needed. Having said that, the very most important one, the medication that I am instructed to take on a daily basis, is the one that I am the most likely to neglect. It's called Amlodipine, which is prescribed for hypertension(high blood pressure).

Here's the deal with me. My level of hypertension is not incredibly high, or in the typical "dangerous zone," nevertheless, for the "Silent Killer' that we now understand high blood pressure to be, it's nothing short of "stupid" for a guy like me not to place a very high priority on taking that small capsule to be sure that my blood pressure levels continue to be at a level of safety. High blood pressure can be the cause of numerous terrible things, including stroke, heart attack, and much more. We simply can't play around with it.

So, exactly why am I more apt to forget my blood pressure meds than the other meds? Well, those high BP symptoms aren't crying out. I have a small disc problem in my lower back for which I take prescription medication, and when it acts up, it truly will let me know about it. But, this is not actually so with my high blood pressure. It's a sneaky condition. With many diseases, the warning signs are certainly going to scream to you that it's time for your meds. But nope, my hypertension doesn't tug on my coat tail and remind me.

So, duh ... how stupid am I? Why don't I put a reminder on my cell phone or something similar that I would do for many other critical tasks? That way I will likely not fail to remember that very important pill. It just ain't that difficult! However, it's really important.

So, okay, I still hope that my children never call each other stupid. However, this is certainly one occasion in which I believe their dad has pretty well fallen into that category on occasion. High blood pressure is dangerous. Let's follow our doctors instructions and do the deal. Let's save our lives.