Dee's Place

Isn't it amazing how quickly the days pass when you don't want a certain day to come? More amazing is that no matter how tired you may be, you don't sleep a wink the night before that day.

An early appointment had me at my primary care doctors office before 9 in the morning. Was I nervous? Well, just try to fill out your medical history with shaky hands....the handwriting alone might alert the doctor to hidden problems.

After a somewhat short period of time I heard the dreaded words come out of the nurses mouth.. "Dee, follow me please". Now, I'm a pretty clever lady so maybe if I engage her in non-stop conversation she'll escort me to the room by-passing the "beast". You know, that step right up and watch your numbers rise to great heights, weight scale? I must tell you in fairness, prior to this point I already lost 50 lbs. so I rather proudly stepped up. Did I just hear a gasp from the nurse? Now remember, I had not been in there before and she had no beginning number on my weight so of course it was my job to inform her. Not sure but I think she rolled her eyes up in disbelief!!

Two things were required for my upcoming surgery. Both were simple as pie and shouldn't cause me any problems. Afterall, all I need is a simple form filled out with approval by my doctor for the surgery and I am out the door. Blood pressure and an EKG. The nurse approaches me and cuffs me then starts squeezing the little black ball as I wait. I'm calm, I thought, until she jots something alien to me down on her pearly white chart and says she needs to repeat the process using the other arm. What the heck??? Both arms are attached to the same body...with the same heartbeats...with the same pressure! I'm not calm anymore!! Again the jotting down of numbers and she indicates it's time for the EKG.

Wait...what's up with the pressure?? She sticks these little suction cups all over my body, turns her back on me and instructs me to lie very still. Oh sure, lie still when your body is doing involuntary hiccups of fear. She finishes and excuses herself leaving me alone....cold and shaking. Then it happened...in walked Him!! The man who wore a white coat and looked ten feet tall !! He didn't waste too much time on hello's and quickly got right to the point. He informed me that my blood pressure was 253/79 and that my heartrate was alarmingly high. ( Well heck yeah, because you're scaring the hell out of me.) He didn't want me to leave his office with such high numbers so he had me relax for about an hour checking on me to see if my pressure was coming down. He never got me to a reading that he was comfortable with so he finally released me with a prescription for beta-blocks to slow my heartrate down for me to take for a week and instructions for me to take my bloodpressure each day and record it for him. He ordered a complete blood work-up ( do you see where this is headed?) and set me up an appointment for Thursday of the next week to go over the results. Oh, did I mention that HE didn't approve the surgery?? The results next time............