The saga began with a routine visit on Tuesday to my dentist for some long-delayed work on a fractured tooth. A little nitrous oxide would calm me down, I noted, and we could proceed. Six more readings ensued over the next 40 minutes and the systolic number continued to hover over Those readings describe a hypertensive crisis. Still, those readings were indeed stratospheric if they were to be believed , so I promised to schedule an appointment.
I really wanted to get that tooth fixed. I was completely asymptomatic, after all; it was just a number. I was awakened on Thursday by my overactive prostate and decided to opt out of a planned social event that afternoon.
The best of three 9 a. I headed to an urgent care clinic on the other side of town. At the clinic, my numbers predictably floated even higher and produced a conspicuous level of alarm among the practitioners. Blood was drawn, an EKG was performed, grim faces predominated. I felt perfectly fine, except for my misbehaving prostate. Envisioning a three-hour wait in a room packed with sick people, I drove straight home.
I awoke early the next morning and checked my numbers. I knew I had to run the gauntlet before I could get the drugs. The ER was empty, so the triage nurse quickly ushered me into a room where she β yup β took my blood pressure very high. I shrugged. Once ensconced in my own room, an ER doctor soon arrived with a nurse and a scribe to record my medical history.
I explained my aversion to conventional medicine but admitted that my age β and blood pressure β now warranted a more cautious approach. The next four hours featured bouts of complete boredom interrupted by the beeping of the blood pressure monitor, multiple EKGs, a couple of blood draws, and finally! After some time, it crept down to and I quietly rejoiced, imagining that I would soon be released from captivity, but the next reading brought despair.
