Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I think that the blog could use another light-hearted “no horse pucky” story, so here it is:
Earlier this week, I had my annual OB/GYN appointment. (this is the point where I lose most of my guy readers – I understand) When the nurse took my blood pressure, it turns out that it was slightly elevated. Now typically, I have really good blood pressure. Once, when I was giving blood, my blood pressure was so low that the nurse taking my blood quipped, “Are you dead?” Knowing this about myself, I implored my gynecologist’s nurse to take my blood pressure on my other arm. It still came up a tad high. Now, truthfully, the nurse wasn’t all that concerned, and neither was the doctor. I wish that I could say that this indifference was the same for me. I had just drunk a bucket’s worth of coffee right before the appointment, and I admittedly, was a little nervous about my appointment, in the first place (despite being 50 years old and having given birth to four children, they still have to beg to me “scooch down a little further, come on now, just a little further” to the edge of the table, every single time). Coffee intake and “white coat syndrome” are known to cause elevated blood pressure. I know this. I have experienced this before. But still . . . .
After the appointment, I headed to the grocery store. I had tried to put my “higher than usual blood pressure” out of my mind, but the truth is, I was sitting in the meat department, staring at my phone, and “telemedicine-ing” with Dr. Google. I once had an employer who was a neurotic, blood pressure fanatic. “I can’t let myself stroke out!” she would emphatically shriek on a weekly basis, putting her hands up to her neck and sticking her tongue out of the side of her mouth (this is completely true – no horse pucky). Truth be told, standing in the grocery store, I was starting to freak out, that I was in fact, “stroking out”, with the visual of my previous boss growing exponentially in my mind. This is when I decided to calm down and to sing along with the grocery store music, and to focus my mind on the seven or eight items that I needed for dinner. I didn’t even grab a shopping cart. I just winded around the grocery store, juggling bread, and fish, and a bag of salad and few other items. Then, I passed the pharmacy department. This is when I got an “aha” moment or perhaps divine intervention, when I laid eyes on their glorious blood pressure monitoring machine.
There was a woman sitting by the machine, and there were two empty seats on the opposite side of the blood pressure monitoring machine. “Oh wow, are we still allowed to use this?” I asked the woman who was sitting by the machine and who must have been waiting for a prescription. I was concerned that Covid may have rendered the machine untouchable, but I didn’t see any yellow tape or Mr. Yuk stickers on the machine.
“I think that you can use it,” the lady by the machine said. (not that she really had any kind of authority on this, but I was happy to take her word for it.)
I was thrilled. I dumped my pile of groceries on the empty chairs on the opposite side of the machine, and I sat myself decidedly and comfortably, in the plastic throne of the blood pressure monitor. It is then that I decided to close my eyes, and I took five long, deep breaths to center myself. I put my arm in the cuff, and I put my mind in Nirvana. When I opened my eyes, I was delighted to see that my blood pressure was 117/73. It was such a gratifying, comforting relief to see those numbers on the screen. I turned to the woman waiting for her prescription and I smiled and I bragged. She nodded kindly (we both had masks on, but I am pretty sure that she was smiling and happy for me). Then I turned to the chairs, in order to grab my groceries, but alas, they were gone. The chairs were empty. No groceries. Nada.
“My groceries are gone! Where are my groceries?!” I asked the lady waiting by the machine.
“Oh yeah, a worker did come by and pick those up,” the lady said, non-chalantly.
“What?!” I looked at her astonished and perplexed. I could feel my blood pressure rising exponentially, at that very moment. But then, I decided it just wasn’t worth my health and my sanity to pursue any further conversation with this woman. I went around the store and I grabbed some more groceries. I did end up tweaking what I decided to purchase, though. I substituted a bag of chocolate chips for the fish. If I am going to stroke-out anytime soon, I want to make sure that I really enjoy every last bit of my life. My prescription for myself: More chocolate, less panic. (but wait, chocolate has caffeine in it, too, right?!)