I ended up at the doctor’s office for a sinus infection. I hadn’t seen the doctor in over two years, a duration I highly recommend.
First off, Dr. H is a sharp cookie. He walks in and says, “Oh, you’re pregnant.” And I’d never even told him! Amazing powers of observation.
So I waddled over to the exam table and heaved myself up onto the crinkly paper, and while Kiddo#3 needed convincing not to break his head open on the wheeled doctor stool (“Sweetie, that’s only for doctors because they’re taller than Kiddos”) Dr. H took my blood pressure. Declared it fine.
It was 120 over 65. Usually during pregnancy, it’s about 90 over 50.
I’ve realized this lately: on midwife visits where I don’t have Kiddo#3 with me, my bp is nice and low, almost in the smelling-salt range. The presence of Kiddo#3 in the exam room raises it by twenty points, minimum. This may explain why I haven’t had issues with passing out this pregnancy.
At any rate, Dr. H asked me questions to figure out how deathly ill I was, and really, I wasn’t. I knew this, but I knew I wasn’t getting better either, and I was in pain. You could see him thinking.
Considerations:
– the fact that I really don’t drop by to see him that often (they didn’t have my current insurance on file, which we’ve had for over 18 months)
– the fact that normally I fight about whether medication is *really* necessary
– the fact that he wanted an active Kiddo#3 out of his otherwise well-ordered office
The last is very important. At one point, Dr. H said, “I can see why he’d raise your blood pressure.”
I replied, “He’s actually behaving pretty well today.” Kiddo#3 is very enthusiastic about everything. By coming to Dr. H’s office, I’d opened a whole new world to him. He wanted to experience the whole thing.
I walked out with a free sample medication, instructions on two more I needed to buy OTC, and a prescription to fill in three days if I wasn’t better. Oh, and Kiddo#3 got to keep my “paper shirt,” the fashion must-have for the in-style patient getting her lungs listened to.
“I never heard it called a paper shirt before,” Dr. H said as we left. I think he’s glad I’m not a hypochondriac and that I have an inherent mistrust of medications. Don’t you?
