A Sea of Green

Back from the vet's and the second blood test, results expected on Monday ("Ring at 7am!"), new appointment with doc to be made for Wednesday.

The waiting room was full of humanity -- scary-looking tattooed bald men, dazed, hobbling middle-aged people like me, serene oldies, new mums and squeaky 4-year-olds. Most GP waiting rooms provide a little toy corner for easily bored youngsters. This GP practice also has a toy corner for easily bored adult hypochondriacs. It's called the self-operating blood pressure testing machine and it's brilliant. I can't resist it. Every time I'm in there, I have to stick my arm into it and measure my blood pressure. Usually there's a pensioner already occupying the machine and even though I don't sport a tattoo, I can loom so threateningly nearby while still smiling down at them that they get quite freaked out, stop faffing about and finish their business quickly. 10 days ago, I tried this thing for the first time and it spat out a little piece of paper. According to it, my pulse rate was astronomical, the systolic value 20 above and the diastolic 16 below what I've been normally getting for the past 25 years. This morning, I tried it again. The paper said my pulse rate was on the moon but that my blood pressure was something like 91 over 47, which didn't sound right. I re-read the instructions. I had done it wrong. I stuck my arm in again and did it right this time. The reading was almost exactly like the one 10 days ago. I liked the diastolic value, very flattering, but was alarmed at the systolic one. I resolved to add that to the list of things I was going to pester the nurse about.

Our GP practice has an interesting system for calling patients: you go in and type a couple of identifying details into a little machine in the foyer. It then finds your appointment, logs your arrival and sends you into one of the waiting rooms. The system then calls you by doing an audible ping and running a little banner with your name on it on an electronic screen. So normally you sit like you would in a drive-in cinema, staring at a screen ahead of you, waiting for your name to appear instead of a film. Of course it doesn't for a while -- but all sorts of other interesting names appear, including one gentleman who was obviously also German. The other thing they do via this gadget is to run endless banners that try to guilt-trip you into joining their various health initiatives: weight loss group (only £2 a visit!), smoking cessation, flu jabs (only £12 a pop if you don't qualify for the free ones!).

I had noticed someone I'd known briefly from about 8 or so years ago sitting in the foyer next to the check-in machine. I wasn't sure if it was her though and as I have a habit of getting it wrong, warmly greeting people who then turn out to be someone I've never met before, I pretended I hadn't seen her. It was an odd place to wait for your appointment because you couldn't see the electronic banner from here. I left her sitting there and went into Reception to play with the blood pressure machine.

The banner did prove me right because her name appeared on there. Then, two minutes later, her doc came on the practice loudspeaker calling her up. Then, another minute on, that same doctor put another patient's name on the electronic banner. Oh dear, I thought, she's missed her appointment.

A little later -- she must have queried it with the receptionist, only to be told she should plonk herself in front of the banner like everyone else -- she came into the waiting room and at that point I thought I should acknowledge her so I greeted her. She greeted me back, and thankfully, there was no further exchange -- the British are just so discreet whereas I can imagine German waiting rooms where you'd then be drawn into a lengthy conversation, overheard by everybody, about potentially quite embarrassing medical details. Hilariously, her name came up on the banner again -- and still she didn't move! So I gave her a friendly verbal prod and she finally got up and wandered off to see her  doc. Hope her news was okay. Didn't look as if she really wanted to see him.

Once safely called into the treatment room, I asked the nurse about the last blood test, and she kindly indulged me: "Look," she said, turning the computer screen with several pages of test results, "a sea of green. Everything's fine -- except this one. That's the one we're now testing again." "This one" was one of the generic inflammation markers, the only red on the screen. It wasn't obscenely above the normal range. I made a note of the result.

"I've got this blood pressure result from the machine," I said to the nurse, by way of distracting myself because she was about to stick a needle into my arm, which makes me go dizzy, "It's really high." -- "No, it's not," she said, "it's absolutely fine." -- "It was like that last week." -- "It's fine."

In the queue at Reception, an elderly lady, who was probably just as much of a blood pressure machine junkie as I was, waved her BP results slip in front of the lip-studded receptionist. The receptionist looked bored. "You need to make an appointment with Dr X to have your blood pressure tested." -- "But I've just measured it, look!", the woman said, impatiently. "Well, how much is it?" -- The woman hands over the results slip. "154 over 119," says the Receptionist, "You need to have this measured properly."

Christ, I thought to myself, maybe my BP is just fine.

Back home, I looked up the inflammation marker -- bang in the middle of the "mild inflammation" range -- and my BP measurements and discovered that before measuring BP you should a) rest for 5 minutes, which I hadn't done, b) not drink coffee up to 5 hours before measuring as this blows up the BP and the pulse rate (and I had drunk 2 big mugs of the strong continental stuff an hour before so was buzzing) and c) not eat anything up to 30 minutes before (which, alas, I had also done). Then I checked my pulse rate on the sofa using an online stopwatch. It was 64.

That machine ain't right.

On the good news side: this morning was the first morning in two weeks that I've been able to walk down the stairs again facing forward as opposed to climb down backwards and clinging onto the bannister for dear life. I am also hobbling a lot less. Maybe things are finally subsiding after all even though both ankles still look gruesomely blue and the edema is still around. I shall continue to stay on the sofa with my feet up and wrapped in bags of frozen parsley and broad beans and hope for the best.