Life of Brian

For those of you keeping track today was my big stress/echo test. In a quest to figure out why my BP went way high (for me) and is now pretty much in line from medication. Well as expected I passed with flying colors, at least preliminarily. The Cardiologist is in the room when you are actually taking the test and he looked at the various EKG readouts and watched my sonogram and said, “Looks OK so far.” Worst part of it was them sandpapering my skin to remove any dead stuff, quickly followed by an alcohol wipe to remove any oils!

I seem like a perfectly healthy person, but once every 3 or 4 days my body freaks or something and I get that hazy feeling and warm and I bet my pressure and pulse rate go up. It happened this afternoon while waiting for the doctor, I was hooked up too the electrodes and I could see my heart rate hit like 90 for a few seconds. Next up is a 24 hour urine sample test to check for something the doctor called “exotic” abnormalities, AKA hormonal imbalances. Don’t know what that entails just yet, I have to go pick my kit at the lab tomorrow….

After Photopoint started charging a few years back I went looking for another site to host my online photos for free. A brief stop was made at Club Photo. They turned to pay as you go about 6 months later. The hunt resumed. This time I ended up at Ofoto (a Kodak company) I figured the had the bucks to keep it free. It is still free but I noticed they have taken the first step down that slippery slope. Used to be you could share your pictures with anyone. Now, for people to view your pictures, they have to become Ofoto members. It is still free for me to keep pictures there and still free for others to view them. I hasn’t happen yet but I think it is only a matter of time before we see something about Ofoto in The End of Free. I’ve no one to blame but myself, all these sites make money by selling reprints of the digital images and I’ve never done it.

I may have to stop writing about this “problem.” Seems as with the medication my BP is going to be right around the “Gold” standard for BP’s 120/80. Was at the doctor’s office this AM to get the script for the drug whose samples they gave me that seems to be working well (after a couple of week adjustment period.) The nurse took my BP and it was 118/74. Later that day I had the company nurse at work take it and she got 122/84. When I asked the P.A. why do I have HBP all of a sudden. She looked back in my chart and started reading off numbers:
10/10/94 120/72
5/17/95 130/70
8/15/95 150/84
9/25/97 120/80
9/22/98 154/82
12/15/98 156/84
10/11/99 146/90
5/24/00 142/80
4/08/02 146/82
Looks like the upper number has been high already for the last 4 years. Hmmmm. As to what caused the spike? Who knows, doesn’t seem to be anything major…..

HPB : Felt crappy last night, didn’t sleep well and still felt crappy in the AM. My BP was 130/84, up a notch. Missed the afternoon measurement, too bad as I felt better and the pressure probably would have been normal.
RT : Staples let me down. I was sure they would have indoor thermometers, looked around and even asked somebody, but they don’t carry them. I guess it is time to hit the web….

The medicine I’m taking is doing its job. Yesterday I was 120/80 and today it read 120/82. This afternoon after walking around the work parking lot, once by myself and then again with my wife for a total of 1/2 mile, nearly right afterwards it measured 118/78. Go figure, it should have been higher.

Still no clue as to why it went higher all of a sudden. All that is really left is the stress/echo test next week and then it will have to be chalked up to a mystery of life. This is apparently the rule though as only approximately 5% of high blood pressure can the cause actually be found. This is called secondary hypertension. Here is a good article I found on the web about the causes. It seems like my doctor has taken the right steps, I’ve had the blood work to test if something bad is happening, I’ve had a CT Scan so they can look for the other stuff and the cardiologist to look for circulatory issues.

The “computer” room in the house is right off our bedroom and because it also adjoins the garage, always seems warmer than the other rooms in the house. We thought maybe we would go get a wall thermometer and put in there just to see. Started at Lowes as we had to go there for something else anyway. No dice. Could buy an electronic thermostat for $25 that would do it, but nothing else in the store. Next stop, Kmart. Up and down all the aisles in the whole store (excluding clothing) and nothing. Asked an employee, who called somebody and then asked somebody and they only had outdoor ones. Tried Dollar General, nothing. Drove to another strip shopping center where we tried an Eckerd Drug store and they only had human thermometers. Next door to Eckerds was a Staples. They probably have them, lots of people have them on their desks or in their cubicles so they can complain about their co-workers wanting the temperature 2 degrees warmer or cooler than they want it. But they closed at 8:00.