Allow me a personal journal entry. This past Wednesday let me experience a sudden change in my life.
The background is that I've had some strange spells the past 7 or 8 months. Feelings of skin numbness moving around, primarily up and down arms, legs, head, in a random fashion for a while, ending in a major headache. Strange and worrying, so I went to my doctor who sent me to a neurologist who in turn sent me to the hospital for a MRI scan.
Well, that's enough for most people to worry about, but when I met for the screening interview there was a surprise waiting for me. The doctor was surprised that nobody har meassured my blood pressure before in the process. So she did. And she went for another machine because this one was obviously not working correct. And she scrapped the second one too and used old fashioned stethoscope. After a moment of confused thoughts she said "I have to admit you to the hospital. I can't let you go with this pressure level!"
A bit shaken now, I used the elevator to get to Floor 9 where they quickly registered the first measurement as 220 over 170. And I didn't have a clue, how does things like that happen?
OK, maybe I should have had a clue. After all I've had this headache since saturday, even for me a 4 day headache is not common.
The quickly following ECG diagram showed that my heart is OK, that I haven't had this level long enough to make any damage, and this was confirmed by some of the blood samples, telling that the kidneys are unaffected too. A lot more testing and measuring followed this, but no conclusion has been reached yet.
Now I'm home for the weekend, but next week will bring more tests. Kidneys, eyes, perhaps even the MRI scan that was the original reason for the hospital visit, some of it _has to_ show why my pressure just went sky high.
And of course I want to know the reason for my original symptoms. Are they connected to this current problems, or am I falling apart in all categories?
OK, a little too dramatic now, perhaps? The truth is that I'm not really worried. At least yet. I feel great (after they helped get down the blood pressure) and every test they made has been negative. Hey, now I even know that I don't have diabetes!
