Saturday, October 10, 2009

First Quarter results

The first three months of the Official Walking regime are over.
I'm about 7 kgs lighter.
My Buddha like tummy has shrunk a little.
And I spend a lot of time hanging around bus-stops.
All in all I would have to say it's been quite a success. The Ms Lears are astonished that I have kept it up, but then, no one ever takes my determination about things seriously - it's the affable exterior. If I may say so, a bit like David Cameron.
The Doc wanted me to do a 24hr. Blood Pressure monitor, so I turned up at the hospital at the appointed hour. Promptly called through, the nurse started rigging me up for an ECG.
" Er, am I having an ECG as well?" I asked.
"It's just an ECG."
" No, I'm in for a BP 24hr test"
"No, you're here for an ECG."
" No, its the BP test."
Very belligerent, hands on hips. " Do you want to make me go and check"
" Yes" - and off she stamped.
Of course, she never reappeared, but another nurse did with the right equipment.
" Sorry about that - couldn't read the instructions properly " ( didn't read them at all, as they were typed)
So I was fitted with an arm band and monitor - which didn't work.
And another - which didn't work.
And then a third one, that was so big it would have easily done an elephant - and kept falling off .
Finally, the fourth one fitted and worked, and off I toddled.
If you have ever had to have this done, you will know how appallingly inconvenient it is. Every time it went off I was in the middle of something and had to stop. Then it went off about every 20 minutes. If I didn't have high BP before I certainly had it with the machinery.
Strangely, it didn't bother me too much overnight, and I dropped it back the next morning.
There was also a form that needed to be completed saying what I was doing during the day - as in 10:45 driving. 11:15 walking, 12:45 cooking ( it went off twice whilst I was in the middle of making two lots of soup),1:15 eating, 8:30 TV.
The ones that would have confused them from me were 9:00 pm computer 9:30 Chess - I'm looking forward to see what they make of it all.
The other problem is that I have White-Coat Syndrome, which I would expect carried over into the monitoring environment, so if you hear I have dropped dead from a heart attack it will be because they have made me have another test ( I intend to refuse if they want one)

1 comment:

Whispering Walls said...

A computer check mate must raise the BP