SAY WHAT?

I'm back from my doctor appointment and all is well. My blood pressure was down to 146/85 which is an excellent reading.....I thought! The Dr. thought differently. "Hmmm"....he said. "I think you are a good candidate for this new machine I have." Who me? "It doesn't hurt a bit, your insurance will cover it, and it will help me better know what's going on inside your heart!" Oh-oh! Sounds invasive to me! "And furthermore, it will help me to better be able to prescribe medicine to control your blood pressure and keep your arteries and heart healthier. If we can do that, we can probably keep you from developing congestive heart failure in the future." Wait a minute ~ I didn't even know that was a possibility! But if it will work it sounds like a plan to me, especially since you now have me scared and my blood pressure is most likely rising due to that last statement!

"The Mayo Clinic is using a machine exactly like this as a diagnostic tool for cardiac patients ." Great! I wonder how much my insurance co-pay will go up to help pay for this contraption.

So, the nurse comes in with what looks like an EKG cart they use at the hospital. She proceeds to place four electrodes on me, one on each side of my neck just behind my ears, and one on each side just below where my bra rests. I'm thinking....wonderful, now I can itch like crazy for the next 48 hours due to my allergy to the adhesive. The nurse explains that this machine is much more accurate at measuring blood pressure than their cuffs and can also tell how much blood is actually flowing through your heart arteries and how much resistance is there. It also gives them your pulse, fluid level inside your heart, and of course it gives them an EKG.

After the test is complete I am asked to wait until it is read and the Dr. will then come back in and speak with me. What was supposed to be a 15 minute visit has now turned into an hour visit. The results are that I need to be on another medicine also, called a calcium channel blocker; my beta blocker needs to be reduced by 25mg since my blood pressure is 128/82; my hydrochlorothiazide needs to be reduced by 12.5mg but everything else is great. Oh yeah, and come back in one month to have the test run again (more money) with this machine so we can see if the changes are working.

So the trip to the Dr. which should have taken 45 minutes at the most ended up taking 2 hours and 10 minutes and should have cost me $20. now cost me $40.

And to top it off, when I came home the dog was acting funny so after a check of the house I found that she had vomited on my new carpeting. I cleaned that mess up and looked at the clock and figured out my day was pretty well used up and I didn't get any of the things done that I had planned on.

Oh well, there's always tomorrow!