Oy. What a day.

It was a day that technically started yesterday morning. I went out to get lunch and noticed an odd slight blurring in the left side of my right eye, in the inside corner. After checking that it wasn't just fingerprints on my glasses, rubbing my eyes or any other expedient, it looked like it wasn't going away. Puzzled and slightly troubled, but undetered as it did not appreciably affect my vision, I went home. By late afternoon it had not gone away -- and I had a slight headache as well. I told myself if it wasn't gone by the morning, I'd call in a sick day at work and go to the opthamologist.

It wasn't, and so off I went early this morning to Erlanger East and their Urgent Care department. Five minutes after arriving, the nurse put a blood pressure cuff on my arm, hit the button, and after the infernal machine attempting to cut off my arm informed me that my blood pressure was 232/117. This, my friends, is stroke range.

I was ... underwhelmed. I didn't feel bad. Just the slight headache that hadn't gone away and the thing with my eye. I mean, I drove myself to the hospital.

But another session with another infernal machine reported almost the exact same numbers.

And the blood pressure thing immediately became the focus of the entire day.

They gave me Clonidine to try to bring it down. The first one didn't make a dent. The second one and nearly an hour's wait made a dent but not an appreciable one -- I was still apparently in danger of my head exploding. Then they explain they wanted to send me to Erlanger downtown and have me admitted... and they wanted to send me right then via ambulance. That's the point where I said hold it, went out into the hallway and called my mother. Ambulance = $$$. There is no need for that when my mother the "I've never had a wreck" queen could come get me in her nice brand new car and get me there much quicker and with far less expense. Since they apparently couldn't trust my brain and circulatory system enough to make a half-hour drive downtown.

So we get there and to my surprise got moved through the Emergency room very quickly, talked to a doctor. They were still talking like they wanted to admit me. They made me sign several things on a very cool tablet computer ("ooh, shiney!"), then took it away and stuck needles in the backs of both hands.

THEY. STUCK. NEEDLES. IN. MY. HANDS.

There was a horrible endless moment when my hands, my virtuoso 22 years of typing, fastest fingers on Tour 2 hands, HAD NEEDLES STICKING OUT OF THEM.

I have toyed with the idea of getting insurance on my hands. Models can get insurance for their legs. I should be able to get insurance on my hands.

One of them they took out after a few minutes. The other they taped in place with several inches of plastic tubing sticking out.

I may be psychologically scarred for life.

Anyway. After a lot of waiting interspersed with occassional bouts of more infernal machines attempting to cut off my left arm, a bag full of fluid draining into my arm via the needle, and some consternation when my blood pressure stubbornly refused to drop, they gave me some other drug that starts with an N and then two more Clonidine. More waiting. Then another test involving other bodily fluids. And the BP still isn't going down at anywhere near the rate they thought they should be seeing.

So just as they were about to conclude that I was safe for public consumption, the shift changed and the new doctor came in, took a look at the lab work, and informed me that with a slightly elevated white blood cell count it was probable I have the beginnings of a kidney infection. Again. Mom said that when she had a kidney infection her blood pressure went through the roof too. Woo. I got my dad's face and my mother's proud family history of hypertension and diabetes.

By this time all the Clonidine and the thing that starts with an N had kicked in full gear and while I think my BP is still high I have no energy at all. The drive back to Erlanger East to get my truck must have worried my mother -- even for me I was too quiet, and I blinked too much and zoned too much. Not good. It also didn't help I hadn't eaten before leaving home this morning and had nothing to drink from 8:30 AM to nearly 3 PM. So I managed to get to Taco Hell and ate and drank, and then I went to Walgreens for the drugs, and so now I speak to you here.

So for the next 30 days I will be on hypertension medicine. And antibiotics for the next three.

Hrrmm...

And I'll have to make an appointment to go to this opthamologist they've referred me to, who happens to be a friend of my stepfather's. And go back to be checked early next week.

And I guess I'll have to start doing something to fix all this.

And tomorrow? I'm going back to work.

"What a world, what a world!"