Dust off the baby book!

It’s baby’s first EKG!!

Yes, children, if your day didn’t start with dry heaves and end in a doctors office, I have you beat.

It was a normal day. I started the day with a little paralyzing anxiety over what fresh hell would be unloaded on me at work and then left for the day carrying a big bag of dread - you know, a normal Tuesday morning.

My trip to doctor land started really Monday, A.K.A. The Worst First Day Back From Vacation Ever. After the threats of hell and damnation in the morning, by the afternoon I was feeling kind of frantic and by chance I grabbed my wrist and said “Wow, that is one speedy pulse rate. Hmm, perhaps I should take my blood pressure - because I know how, and I work in an office where there are blood pressure cuffs wandering around, well actually, they aren’t free range blood pressure cuffs, we had to fence them in, you know, for their own protection - well, actually, there was an ugly non-consensual squeezing incident at an office party and we kind of became obligated to keep them locked up. It was part of a settlement.

Anyway, I managed to spring one and I set to trying to take my own blood pressure with an old fashioned, manual BP cuff. I have taken hundreds of vitals - other peoples vitals. I’ve taken so many I can feel comfortable calling them “vitals”. I have my own stethoscope - I rock vital signs Sprague Style. Despite my rockin’ vital taking experience, I haven’t taken vitals in five years. I have never taken my own. Do you know why? Its hard. And not hard like being president. Hard like trying to get the cuff thing, which isn’t really like the cuff on your pants, by the way, it’s not a circle, it’s what’s left over when you hem your pants. It’s like what would happen if you had to like reattach the piece back onto your pants - One handed! and then had to pump it up.

I forgot things about BP taking over the years. I sat there and tried to get the stupid thing on my arm and that took a long time. It was also kind of a stresser. You don’t need to be stressed while trying to get your blood pressure, it can affect your grade. In blood pressure the lower score is the better score. Like golf.

Anyway. I got the damn thing on and then I tried to pump up the pump. And tried, and tried and tried. Nada. Nothing. A lot of hissing. As I said, it’s been like five years. I really should have signed up for a refresher course or asked some one else to do it for me. There are like nurses coming out of the wood work here. But, I soldiered on. I figured out the hissing thing and I got a reading, part of a reading. I didn’t like the part I got. It was over par. Tiger Woods cried for me.

Later, I asked an actual nurse to do the honors and she got a better number - Tiger was sad, but dry eyed. She got both numbers and told me to call my doctor. I did.

I went home and found the number and called and found out they were all ready closed. Tuesday morning I called back and I got an appointment. Same day! If you want to get in to the doc, mention “high blood pressure” and “nurse said to call” . It gets you in.

When I went in to tell my boss I had a doc appointment why, she told me to “Get my shit together and just do my damn job and stop getting myself worked up about it”. She’s a social worker.

So. I went to the appointment. In the space of an hour I got A) my vitals taken, B) a UA (normal),C) an EKG (normal), and D) a blood panel drawn. No wonder they got me in, the whole thing was over faster than my last Happy Meal.

I also got, E) a proscription for a beta blocker.