Salt and Stress and Heredity, Oh My! - Shelli's Column 013110

So I'm going to try not to make this column just about me, but my week was pretty messed up. Well, just the middle of it, but clearly, three days out of seven is too much mess. Monday was good, other than being a Monday. Tuesday, not so much.

You may remember me telling you a few weeks ago about my dad suffering a heart arrest directly after the Liberty Bowl game in Memphis. If you didn't read it, Dad's doing fine, due to some fantastic medical professionals at Methodist University Hospital, along with five stents in his heart and a miniature defibrillator device in his chest. Okay, consider my Tuesday prefaced.

I had a first-time appointment with a doctor in Bryant, so I had to fill out all this paper work. Okay, it was just four sheets, but they had this big television in the waiting room. Good move on their part to keep patients patient, except for those people who can't ignore the thing to fill out forms. (My hand is raised.)

I get done with the forms and the asking for my name and address several times and the insurance number and the emergency people and who can look at what in my records, blah. Back to vaguely watching this show in the lobby while checking emails on my phone. The show is one of those things that's an hour so it's supposed to be a drama, but it's cutesy, so where's the drama? I don't know the name of it.

Amen! The door opens and it's my turn. Hold onto the amen, because the first thing I see is the scale. You know if you've been following my column that I haven't said a darn thing about a New Year's resolution. I don't normally make them, because it just ruffles my feathers somehow. Why do I have to make some life-changing decision the day after I just stayed up all night? Nevermind that I was a big (eighties Canadian word coming up) hoser and didn't go to any parties. I just stayed home so that other folks could do their celebrations.

Back to the scale. I ask the nurse if I should take off my shoes and then I ignore her answer because I'm too lazy to reach and wriggle anyway. The number was not as bad as I thought it would be, but still not good enough to share with you readers at your impressionable age.

To the Bat Cave, a.k.a., the examining room. A humble chair in the corner beckons my hiney as the nurse asks why I'm visiting. I take in the delicate view of Interstate 30 between the slanted blinds and tell her that my parents come to the same doctor and she probably knows that my dad recently got some new heart parts. Then I do my "mom" impression with the high voice and straightened index finger, detailing theatrically, but briefly the "encouragement" my mom had given me to make this appointment. As I finish my impression, the blood pressure cuff is on and pumped. Next up, the nurse says to me, "180 over 110. Get comfortable. You're going to be here a while."

No, that's not what you want to hear at your doctor appointment. She came right back and gave me a pill to make that number go down, and I wasn't going to be able to leave unless it did go down. My response? Tweet it. Yeah, I got on Twitter and started fishing for people in the same boat. That made no sense, but I had the virtual shoulder available to me to whine on, so there I went. My tweets also post to Facebook, and I got a few friends from both places writing back with sympathy, advice and curiosity about my health.

I was used to being at the doctor's office for a couple of hours, but in the big city of Little Rock, it was always about keeping the waiting room chairs warm. The second pill made me pretty sleepy, but the bottom number still wasn't down to 100 like the doc wanted, so now I take another and I lay down on the table with the lights out. Oh, and I got off the Internet on my phone.

The door opens, my eyes pop open, the nurse walks in and says I have some visitors. I hadn't completely forgotten where I was but... yeah, my parents were there. Turns out my dad was getting some blood work and they saw my car out front. Here's where you find out that I am so completely spoiled. Since I was three pills into trying to relax, and Mom and Dad were concerned about my health, the lights stayed out and my mom rubbed my temples while my dad rubbed my feet.

The nurse comes back in and my blood pressure has finally hit 130/100. I can leave. Would you like my parents to come to your next appointment? Too bad.

In between the pills, I did visit with the doctor and we talked about all the things that can contribute to high blood pressure. I alluded to salt in one of my tweets. Then there's heredity. Stress is another big one for me. I do two or seven things at a time. I'm watching the Simpsons as I write this, and thinking about a speed dating fundraiser for Within REACH. I thought I might get something in this column too about being a judge in Arkansas' Funniest Person and some speculation about what locals might run for what office. Let's just go with what else happened to mess up my week.

Since I had been held hostage and massaged until lunch time, I asked my mom for an idea of where to eat that didn't have a gob of salt in the entrees. To their house for lunch I went and shortly thereafter I fell medicinally asnooze on their soft green couch. Then I awoke all hot and with a dastardly noggin knot. Mom went to get my prescriptions at that point, since some of it was for getting the blood pressure down right away.

What happened next involved water pressure moreso than blood pressure. That is, the headache caused some chunk blowage, and therefore, potty flushage. I was not delighted with this development, but it definitely kept the salt out of my diet. I stayed there for the night since they have a sphigmomo... blood pressure taker and no stairs to climb. Day one of stinkage was complete.

The next couple of days were just me hanging onto the tumbleweed that was this exciting experience, waiting for the wind to die down. Every bend for a house shoe or stand for a bathroom break reminded me of the metaphorical San Andreas fault line on my head.

By Thursday night, I was feeling better, but still not at playing strength. I knew I was probably out of leave time, so I had to buck up and be okay with going to work on Friday. That is when the Lord saved me from having to trudge through a sickly work day by hooking up his Super Soaker gigantical water gun to the great snowcone machine in the sky and convincing Governor Beebe that it was not a great day for Shelli and so many other non-essential State employees to make the trip to work. Did I say I wasn't going to make this column all about me?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This column appeared in the Benton Courier January 31, 2010. See more of Shelli's columns at http://www.mysaline.com/notes/Courier_Columns