When I grow up-er, I'm letting my body fall to pieces rather than sumbit to the gross humiliation and subjugation of the medical industry (as opposed to profession).
I might not necessarily mean that (seeing as there is a faint possibility that other people might want me around and that their feelings might be more important than mine on the subject) but I am boggled at the intrusiveness and frustration of this latest (and hopefully last) blood-pressure related test.
Yesterday I wandered into the Snobs-r-us Hospital(tm) (otherwise known as Mt-Sinus) and was relieved that there wouldn't be any more doctors around for what wasn't in fact a procedure at all. They didn't have to jab me with anything to attach the ambulatory BP monitor, they just wrapped my arm in a cuff and hung the machine about my neck.
And then switched it on. It beeped twice, and then began inflating past the point of necessary inflation. (y'see, some people have a BP MUCH higher than mine, so the pressure of the cuff has to be brought way the fuck up...) While inflating, it made the most horrendous whirring noise. Post-inflation, I had to remove my wedding ring because of the swelling.
Then the slightly-nervous RN explained that this would happen every twenty fucking minutes for the next twenty four hours, and that when I hear the warning beep I have to stop whatever I am doing, be it walking or speaking or sitting down to pee (that one's happened twice already) and wait the 30 seconds for the inflation-deinflation-notation.
Yesterday evening my biggest concern was how humiliating it would be to have to walk around with a tube jutting from my shirt, and how difficult it would be to run the meetings I had to run today if I had to stop midsentence three times during each meeting -- I was deeply concerned about how the whirring noise and alarming inflation of my left arm would affect the attention spans of the colleagues whose thrall is essential to my next project.
Never fear, I cancelled all my meetings two hours ago, despite the fact that this delays the first milestone of my project by at least two weeks -- let alone the completion of the entire project.
Y'see, I won't be holding anyone in thrall when I can barely form full sentences. I've slept better with gunfire in the background; or the night before my first ever large presentation. Last night not only was Dave relegated to the couch (as my routine isn't supposed to be interrupted for this test) because he couldn't sleep for the nouse -- I got to wake up every twenty minutes (or the gracious thirty minutes between midnight and 6am) due to the pain of the over-inflation and blood rushing to my bruised-from-my-workouts wrist. Actually, that last bit isn't accurate, because I didn't really fall asleep in between measurements; instead I lay there bristling with nervousness and waiting for the next sore squeeze.
I'm still braving my lunch date with a colleague/friend, even though it will be in a public place for longer than the interval between measurements -- I'm going to deal with the strange looks and suprised glances at the start of each whirring. I'm going to hope that we can sit near the back of the restaurant so that I can draw as little attention as possible, but I think I'll live if that doesn't pan out. I'd re-schedule the lunch date but she's leaving for Thailand tomorrow and we haven't seen each other in months.
After lunch, I'm going to sit sullenly at my desk some more, continue to time my bathroom breaks so that nobody notices me in the hallyway, and continue to garner piteous glances from my team who've been subjected to the whirring since nine o'clock this morning.
At 3pm, I'm going to slink slowly back to the hospital and return the fucking thing, and try not to shake on the way home.