I spent the morning of my birthday in the ER because I had exceedingly high blood pressure all week.
It was a rough week. It involved a lost IKEA package and two absolutely vile FedEx employees. I don’t want to recount the details because it’s like reliving the whole crazy experience.
The ER doctor was convinced I was having a mini-stroke –not because of the high blood pressure, but because of the tingling all along the left side of my face. I tried to explain it happened all the time (I can trigger it by using my left hand to cut and paste) but he was not having it. He wanted me to stay overnight for more tests; I told him no.
He wanted me to see my primary care doctor for a follow up, which I did yesterday. I am nothing if not cooperative. My regular doctor readily agreed I was not having a stroke — he was more concerned that I had low potassium levels AGAIN.
I told him the low potassium made me woozy and clumsy, which of course convinced the ER doctor more than ever that I was having a stroke. But I was not.
So I went home, took a shower and met my best friend for a birthday dinner at Silk City. It was wonderful.
Sorry to hear about your tribulations. Sometimes it feels like nothing works properly anymore. It gets hard to cope. People just don’t have any diligence in what they do, or even awareness (or care) that other people are real and that their actions have consequences. And the “nothing works right” also applies to my aging body.
All we can do is hang in there as best we can, try to live up to our ideals, while being forgiving and kind to ourselves for doing the best we can. At least that’s what I try to tell myself.
Standing up for yourself with a doctor, and having birthday dinner with a friend sounds like you are handling things well. Happy Birthday (or if it was your friends birthday, Happy Wednesday/Thursday) !
I generally prefer women as physicians because they actually listen to me. *Not all doctors.* Perhaps bananas for potassium? Any way to fortify that? Put a drain plug on your potassium drains? Gatorade?