Sunshine Day: Aster Abstract

This photo was from my morning walk. I just liked the look of the asters in the sun. Only one flower (in the middle there) is actually in focus, which I sort of enjoyed. My soundtrack song is this: Eddie Vedder, with Rise.



The rest of this posting is about medical stuff. Skip it if that sort of thing doesn't interest you!

I had my annual doctor appointment on this day, which I only discovered about a week and a half before, when I logged into the medical portal I use to communicate with my doctor. Suddenly, there it was, on the calendar for a Friday afternoon! I'm not sure how it got set. Some kind of automated process, probably, but I have to admit that it was a surprise. I didn't even have time to dread it. Much.

I have made a lot on these pages about my daily walks. The truth of the matter is that I started doing those walks because of high blood pressure. In early 2021, I was newly retired and my husband suggested I find a way to work more exercise into my life. I decided to walk every day. I typically walked 45 minutes or more a day. It didn't cure my high blood pressure, but it did make me feel better. (More recently, I alternate walks with bike rides and swims, except now all the state park swimming areas are closed.)

My doctor put me on Lisinopril and Amlodipine, which seemed to work out okay. That regulated the blood pressure. Then, I learned that Amlodipine can cause increased risk of glaucoma. With all of the eye issues my mother had, in the fall of 2023, I requested to be put on something else. My doctor put me on HCTZ. All of this happened during the month after my parents died. (BTW, I came by my blood pressure issues honestly; as it turns out, both parents took blood pressure meds up until the time of their deaths, including some of the same meds I have taken.)

During the transition time, my blood pressure ran out of control. I used to check it every day, especially then. The day that I posted the fun photo of me as a mermaid,* on October 26, my blood pressure almost kept us home. I still have the readings written down, the worst of which was 172 over 112. My husband treated me like a ticking time bomb. We almost didn't go anywhere that day. Then, suddenly, we went swimming, in spite of it all!

Within a month after that, and after an increase in medications, my blood pressure was finally in a more normal range. But I had developed an aversion (I won't go so far as to say phobia) about having my blood pressure taken! I take it myself about once a month now. Every time I get out the blood pressure cuff, my heart beat starts to speed up. It's normally in the 70s, low 80s. I get out the cuff: suddenly, it's 90s, even over 100 sometimes. It sucks. I can't help it. I can't stop it. I can't even control my body!

So you know what? I was dreading this visit to the doctor. I used to hate getting shots or having blood drawn (yuck, needles!). I used to hate being weighed. And don't get me started on the boobie-smashing and the more intimate maneuvers. Next to blood pressure worries, all of those things are small potatoes! I knew my fear was irrational. It embarrassed me to be afraid. So I tried to talk myself out of it. I tried to ignore it. Then I tried to think of strategies to get myself through it.

This was the day of the big appointment. We agreed we would treat me to a nice $5 meal at Burger King afterward so I'd have something to look forward to. I sang silly things to myself: "I am a chrysalis, I'm a cocoon." I tried to pretend I was a chrysalis, cool and green, with no blood pressure at all! "Try to think about pool noodles," my husband offered, helpfully.

I got to the waiting room. I felt my heart rate go up. I began breathing exercises. Breathe in to count of 4. Hold to count of 4. Breathe out to count of 4. I did that whole thing 4 times, until I almost felt light-headed. Then, I watched some tale on TV where they tried to sell people houses that needed big renovations. Million-dollar houses. Nice neighborhoods. Big bills.

The guy who does some of the preliminary stuff called me in to the examining room. Of course, I was nervous. He put a finger monitor on me and I saw it read my heart rate. He stuck a thermometer under my tongue: 99.1, a little high. Then he came at me with the blood pressure monitor. It was way too big for my small arm. As he fussed to make it fit, I watched my heart rate on the finger monitor: 82. 84. 86. Then, he finally got it attached, and he took my blood pressure, while I sang to myself that I was a chrysalis and I was okay!

Then I thought I heard him say it out loud: 160 over 78, okay. I said, What? He repeated it. I had mis-heard. It WASN'T 160, it was 116! My blood pressure was 116 over 78!!!! (My heart rate was listed as 92. So what.) This was the best blood pressure I've gotten on record at the doctor's in probably 20 years!

Then my lady doctor came in and we had a good chat. I had a list of things. I gave her the reports on the four ticks that bit me during the past year. She wrote out some orders for blood tests, etc., the usual. Plus a test for tick diseases (which I instantly went and got done at the lab next door). "What a great blood pressure!" she said. I practically danced on out of there! "That's the happiest I've ever seen anyone leave from a doctor visit," my husband observed.

And so this is my happy-ending story for this day!
I survived having my blood pressure taken, and it was GOOD!

P.S. I've come back a day or two later to add this. It is very difficult to admit to failings, and to fear, and to irrationality. But I own my own emotions and behaviors ("own your own crazy," as Kacey M. sings). I claim them. I have all of those things inside me (in addition to many GOOD things, of course). But I try NOT to let them own me, or guide me, or limit me. I was reading a J.D. Robb book (Kindred in Death) last week, and this quote really resonated with me: "For a woman of her sometimes terrifying courage, she feared the oddest things." I try to make light of my own failings, and do better, and move on. So this is me, owning my own squirrelly thoughts and behaviors, and sharing them with you! I recently came up with this quote, which I wrote down, thinking it might be sort of accidentally profound: "Turn your miseries into stories, and wear them like a coat to keep you warm."

*I've also added this footnote: When you see a photo of someone smiling and having fun on social media, you may not always know (as Paul Harvey used to say) the rest of the story. There may be secret miseries and battles you never knew about going on behind the scenes. So now you know some of mine!