“150 over 90”
She said that without any emotion. Just as someone might read the ingredients off a cereal box. I have noticed this on previous visits as well. It doesn’t matter what the blood pressure reading is, the nurse just recites it in matter of fact manner. She leaves the editorializing to Dr. Diener.
Steve Diener is my primary care doc. I like him personally but his office sucks. A typical appointment will involve at least a twenty minute wait in the waiting room (it’s called that for a reason) and then at least a fifteen minute wait in the exam room. The exam room waits are the worst. At least in the waiting room there are magazines to read. In the exam there is nothing but some model of a backbone. I’ve taken that thing apart and put it back together more times than I can count.
“You say you are having some chest pains?”
“No. It is more of a nagging tightness.”
“We going to do an EKG, take off your shirt and I’ll be right back.”
I am getting good at EKG’s. Since we began trying to get my blood pressure under control two years ago, I have had four or five of them. I’ve also had two stress tests which all means that I’ve had a fair number of chest hairs ripped out as a result.
She administers the EKG, rips the leads and more hairs off my chest and informs me that Dr. Diener will get with me as soon as he finishes up with another patient. This is what they always say.
After taking apart and reassembling the back bone model several more times, Dr. Diener appears. He is not pleased.
“Your blood pressure is still too high. We need to get this under control.”
Okay. When we first started working on my high blood pressure problem over two years ago he put me on a mild regime of Linisporil (5mg twice daily). That didn’t do much. After my second stress test, my cardiologist, David Jackson, upped that to 20 mgs once daily. On my last visit to Dr. Diener, three months before this particular visit, he added 40 mgs of Benicar daily to the mix.
“I’m going to start you on Coreg instead of the Linisporil and add a diuretic called HCTZ. Your EKG looks fine but if that tightness gets any worse I want you to go to the emergency room. I also want to see you again in a week in the meantime, no exercise.”
The EKG didn’t mean shit and I would not see him next week either. It was three days before my heart attack.
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4 comments:
I just had an EKG yesterday. Doc said it was fine. Should I be worried?
I heart Dr. Diener and individual members of his staff. But I agree that the wait times are ridiculous. I usually bring my own entertainment with me to his office since a visit there is rarely less than 90 minutes (10 of which I spend with the good doctor himself, though he does take more time if it's needed).
gypsypalace,
If your father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, great grandfather or great grandmother died from heart disease you probably want to have some more other assurrance for heart health than the EKG. I would. As I wrote, my own EKG gave no indication of an impending heart attack three days prior.
Should you be worried?
In this day and age we should all be worried...about everything.
-wb
Dino Mom,
Thanks for dropping by.
-wb
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