my blood pressure

A Really Rotten Day (and It’s Not Even 10:30 Yet)

leeduigon(patty)April 11, 2016

I should have known, I should have known.

The first thing I heard today was the P.A. system of the public school next door, a little girl leading the student body in the Pledge of Allegiance–from which the line, “One nation under God,” was deleted. No law required its removal: our local school board took it upon itself to estrange the children from God. I have lived in this town all my life, and I have seen it lose its soul.

Now, when I left the doctor’s yesterday, it was with the clear understanding that I would, this morning, get a new prescription for a higher dose of my blood pressure medicine. Period. The nurse practitioner recommended a cholesterol medicine but I said I wouldn’t take it, I’d heard too many bad things about it. Okay, fine, she said, I don’t have to take it.

So I went to Wal-Mart this morning–oh, I wanted to be efficient! So I left before I even had my breakfast–and waddaya know? Some little voice told me I’d better check and see what was in the bad before I left the counter. Lo and behold–NO blood pressure medicine, plenty of cholesterol medicine, and double-strength water pills that weren’t once mentioned yesterday.

On the way back I stopped at the doctor’s office to demand an accounting–ha, ha, nobody there. Office hours, Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Nobody there at 9:30.

Is this how they propose to lower my blood pressure? Doubtless I’ll get a phone call later, bidding me to go back to Wal-Mart and try again, waste some more time. “Hey, Lee, you need to get more exercise!” Well, when the sam-hill am I supposed to do that? Jumping jacks in the doctor’s office?

I could just scream.

Back From the Doctor’s

leeduigon(patty)April 10, 2016

The good news, I guess, is that a lot of people my age are already dead. You could look it up (as Casey Stengel used to say).

The bad news is that my high blood pressure has in some inscrutable way done harm to my innards and I gotta go back to the doctor on Wednesday to find out more about it and get another prescription.

The nurse practitioner tells me most of my problem is age-related or genetic, and that otherwise I am a reasonably healthy specimen. If she had told me I had to give up my daily cigar, I think I would have fainted.

I hate medical stuff.

May the Lord give me whatever I need to deal with this–starting with trust in Him.

Now I’ve Lost My Doctor

leeduigon(patty)March 29, 2016

Gee, Ma, why’s that man’s blood pressure so high?

I stayed away from doctors for years, but I finally had to go back when I trashed my elbow last month. And, lo, I found a wonderful doctor, someone I could trust. She was my age, and we could communicate. She knew how to use her eyes, ears, and fingertips to find out what was wrong with you. None of this computer crap.

To make a long story short, I needed to go back to her this week, but when my wife called to make the appointment, “Sorry, Dr. Hale is no longer with us.” Of she’s gone into that wild blue yonder, and here we are back to square one.

My aunt is still in the hospital. They say they’ve fixed everything, so I don’t know why she’s still there.

It’s blowing a gale-force wind outside so I can’t ride my bike.

Lord, give me strength.

Back from the Doctor (sigh)

leeduigon(patty)February 15, 2016

Rush to the doctor, rush to the pharmacy, then to the supermarket, then you can try and generate a Newswithviews column…

They say I have high blood pressure.

Well, forsooth, that’s why I bought my bike in the first place; and it was doing a very nice job of lowering my blood pressure until I fell off two weeks ago. So my arm is still messed up, I have other serious family problems which I’m not at liberty to mention here, I have enough work to keep me as busy as a one-armed paper-hanger, and on top of all that, every day I watch my country being murdered by inches by the very persons who have a sacred duty to preserve and protect her.

Yeah, I have high blood pressure. Duh!

But I believe in the power of prayer, and I believe in God’s sovereign rule over my life and the lives of nations. And if any of you feel moved to pray for me–well, I appreciate it, and I’m convinced it’ll do me good.

leeduigon(patty)February 4, 2016

I bought my bike in the first place, a few months ago, because my dentist wouldn’t give me a cleaning on account of my high blood pressure. I didn’t want to go on blood pressure medicine, so I got a bike instead and rode it every day. After a month or so of that, my pressure was jim-dandy.

Today in the doctor’s office the nurse checked my pressure again. “It’s going to be high,” I told her. “I’m at the doctor’s and I’m in pain.” And sure enough, it was very high.

But the doctor wasn’t satisfied. After I thought we were done, she said, “You know what? Let me check your pressure again. I think you might have what we call ‘white coat pressure.’ It goes up whenever you face a medical procedure.” But everything else, she added, appeared to be just fine.

So she checked it again, and it was high again. “You’re a Christian,” she said. “Think of something that makes you happy.”

The first thing that popped into my head was a hymn, Revive Us Again, complete with auto-harp and guitar. (You can find that hymn posted elsewhere on this blog.) And after 30 seconds or so, the doctor said, “Aha! Now it’s going down, just like I thought it would. You don’t have true hypertension. You have white coat high blood pressure.”

Well, that was good news.

If you’ve got a blood pressure monitor handy, you might want to try this at home. Or you could just take my word for it.

Guess What? I Have High Blood Pressure

leeduigon(patty)October 10, 2015

So I went to the dentist for a routine cleaning, and, for the first time ever, they took my blood pressure before they did anything. And it’s too high–way too high. On that account, I was refused dental treatment. It’s new rules, handed down from the state dentistry board, nothing to do with us–they just don’t want me having a stroke while my teeth are being cleaned. I promised n0t to conk out on them, but no dice.

Because I’m not on any medications now and I don’t want to be, I will try to get my BP down with diet and exercise. I hate diet and exercise. Meanwhile, various people have asked me why I have high blood pressure in the first place.

Well, it’s an hereditary trend among males in my family. And I have a sedentary job, sitting at the computer for hours on end.

But there’s also the unremitting stress of standing here watching my country get debauched, turned into a joke, and murdered by the very persons who are supposed to maintain it and protect it. The whole ruling class of America hates America and wants to turn it into something else. Dissolve our borders, import hundreds of thousands of Muslims, redefine basic human institutions, butcher babies, persecute Christianity and Christians, trash the whole thing beyond recognition; and we have a “president” who shreds a copy of the Constitution every morning as soon as he wakes up, and does it again when he goes to bed at night.

Our rulers, our opinion-shapers, our rich and powerful and glorious whoopee crowd, hate us, despise us, and are doing their level best to ruin us.

I long to open my eyes someday to a world in which I will never hear such a phrase as “persons who identify as men.”

So, yeah, you bet I’ve got high blood pressure.

The stuff that’s being done to our country has got to stop.

And one way or another, it will.