The best to you, Connie.

I had a somewhat more eventful doctor's appointment than I'd anticipated. (Nothing bad. At least, I don't think so.) Went to the rheumatologist for my usual six-month, "Yep, still got that genetic disease. Nope, no new symptoms. Yep, I need a refill on my painkillers" appointment. The nurse took my blood pressure, said, "Well, that's high." It was 145/106 -- the highest I can ever remember mine being before is 125/110. So she took my blood pressure again, and frowned, and went to get the doctor. Then he took my blood pressure, said, "Whoa! That's not good! Let me check something," and then had another nurse come in and take my blood pressure. (By this point, my arm was bright red and covered with red dots from broken blood vessels.) So the doctor and nurse talk to each other, and they say that I need to see a primary care doctor, right away. So, they make an appointment for me with a primary care doctor (this is a whole integrated medical practice system thing), and I drive across town to the primary care doctor. The nurse there takes my blood pressure twice, then the doctor takes it. Then the doctor goes through all my medications, and all the ones that could cause high blood pressure are ones that I've been taking with no problem for years. He asks if I've been feeling sweaty or dizzy or nauseous or anything, and I say no, I feel fine and I've been feeling fine. He asks a bunch more questions about my family history, takes my blood pressure again (it's dropped a bit by this point) and says that he doesn't know what's causing it, but it's not high enough to start any kind of new medicines or anything right away. So, he tells me to go home, not take any Sudafed this week (I take it once in a while, but my last dose wasn't recently enough to have caused this), and come back in a week for a nurse to take my blood pressure again, and then come back again a week after that for my regular primary care doctor to see me and discuss whether we need to do anything.

So. No idea what's up with that. Except that my upper arm is going to be one massive bruise tomorrow.

Strength~ma for both of you Connie. Yes, stress can do a real number on your immunity so you have to balance Connie care in there somehow.

I hope to see a quick resolution to that one, Hil. It has been a pretty rough time for you lately and that could make a difference.

I love the story with the hats, Connie.

Postponing the surgery makes sense. Be kind to yourself, too.

I told the doctors that I've been kind of stressed lately, but they said that stress could raise it somewhat, but not that high.

I hope the mystery gets solved soon Hil, and that your BP goes back down.

Oh, and in "I'm glad it's not me" news, one of my grad school friends got to work today to find that someone had taken a shit right outside his office door. His best guess is it's a student who wasn't happy with his or her grade, but he doesn't actually know.

That is full on creepy. I'd contact campus police.

I'm sure he did.

I hope everything goes as well as possible, Connie.

Hil, you've been under a lot of ongoing stress. Maybe it's just a one-time thing. I hope so, anyway.