Affairs of the Heart

This week found me in the hospital again.  I’d been having a sensation for a couple of weeks.  It was as if I’d swallowed something that got stuck around the chest region.  It would come and go, but then I noticed my blood pressure was starting to elevate.  I started tracking it daily and while it wasn’t alarmingly high, it was at the beginning level of high blood pressure.  I left a message for my doctor, who in turn called me into her office to check things out.

Of course, the day I went in everything returned to normal.  Chest was fine, and blood pressure was fine.  The EKG looked good.  She ordered up a stress test and told me if the sensation returned I was go to the ER immediately.

The next morning I was awoken with that chest pressure again.  This time seemed a bit more intense since it had caused me to come awake.  I got up and puttered around the house, but it wasn’t getting better.  I took my blood pressure and saw it was starting to go up again.  Sigh.

I thought about waiting but then remembered I’d promised Mike to take this seriously, so I got him out of bed, explained the situation and we went to ER.

The admissions nurse was great.  He said, “You are a young 64.”  I liked that part a lot.  But wouldn’t you know, he had to continue.  “But you are 64, so we need to look into this more.”  Not really what I wanted to hear, but I wasn’t surprised, either.  As Mike came in from parking the car, I was getting fitted with a hospital bracelet and being led to a room to spend the next several hours.  Getting blood drawn, having a chest x-ray, taking pills, having more blood drawn, having my vitals checked.  My blood pressure went up and then it went down.  No idea why.  Happily, I was released in the afternoon.

Monday I have the stress test.  This is not how I planned to start spring.  Once again, art is pushed to the back burner.

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