The weather outside is lovely! Today the temperature is supposed to rise to 27C and feel like 32C. I am sitting in the living room writing this, with all the windows in the house open. The curtains rise and fall gently in the breeze. The scent of blossoms fills the air. The birds are singing the praises of the day.
This is the cusp of the day, 9:30 a.m. The temperature outside is just below the temperature inside the house. In a short time that will reverse, and the breezes slowing through the house will begin to warm the interior. Then it will be time to shut all the windows, and draw all the curtains against the sun. After I do that it will be time to sit out on the porch and enjoy my breakfast.
Attila has been picking rhubarb in the garden. Earlier in the week I baked rhubarb squares for his lunches. He has picked more since. The plan was to make strawberry rhubarb jam today, but with the high temperature predicted that plan was postponed for milder weather. In the meantime, since more rhubarb will be coming in from the garden soon, the harvested rhubarb will be washed, diced, and frozen. I think I will try to dehydrate some as well, and if that works it will be preferable because it won’t take up freezer space.
We love our pizza nights. But in the summer we avoid using the oven as much as possible, so our indulged meal will become our homemade sausage patties on a bun, with a side of home canned coleslaw. We both love the homemade sausage patties, and they have become our red meat of choice.
The robin is calling me, the temperature is rising, time to close the windows, and step outside for a sit on the porch!
<health rant>
White Coat Syndrome
“White coat hypertension occurs when the blood pressure readings at your doctor’s office are higher than they are in other settings, such as your home. It’s called white coat hypertension because the health care professionals who measure your blood pressure sometimes wear white coats.”
I was diagnosed with white coat syndrome a long time ago. It comes from the frustrations I’ve faced over my anaphylaxis (survived for 40 years), which means that any careless act on the part of a medical person could result in a quick and painful death. And they make mistakes all the time. I have awakened from surgery to find they can’t figure out what pain medications they can give me, so I had none, and that was a traumatic experience. I was in hospital for three days having blood transfusions at one point, and they kept sending me food with my allergen in it, or unknown which is just as bad; Attila brought me food so I would not go hungry. I have sat in a dentist’s chair and been informed that I had just been injected with a substance that might contain my allergen. Sitting there wondering if I am about to die, watching the fearful faces of the staff, well who would not be traumatized by that. There have been dozens of times where health care people were going to give me food, pills, injections, and I had to stop them and find out if my allergen was contained in them; at least a dozen times it was. And almost worst of all, health care people frequently annoyed, and treat me as if I am a complainer, an attention seeker, a troublemaker, a pain in the behind. I do what I have to do to stay alive, no apologies. So, my anxiety about the medical people is not only justified, it is essential to preserve my own life. I wear a medic alert, but only once in over 40 years has a medical person actually looked for it, only once.
This leads me to thinking about my blood pressure, which is always high when I have medical appointments or procedures. Right now it is often high. They are always suggesting increasing the quantity and/or number of medications, changing my lifestyle, useless stuff considering their measurements are based on a symptom that causes temporary high blood pressure, and that I’ve tried all that to no avail. I’ve made all the lifestyle changes that can be made, and they have been beneficial, but the while coat syndrome remains.
I have a plan! I am going to start taking my own blood pressure every day. Taken five consecutive times, the first time it is always high, then progressively lowers. My thinking is that if I take it every day it will become a routine thing, and eventually the automatic stress associated with it will diminish. This would probably take months to internalize, so I will give it a good go to see if it helps.
</health rant>
Worldly
Weather
Updated on Fri, May 13, 9:25 AM
21 °C
FEELS LIKE 22
Partly cloudy
Wind 16 S km/h
Humidity 58 %
Visibility 30 km
Sunrise 5:43 AM
Wind gust 23 km/h
Pressure 102.2 kPa
Ceiling 9100 m
Sunset 8:25 PM
Quote
“We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.””
John W. Gardner
1912 – 2002
I hear you on the oven. We have a eight or nine year old stove whose oven is as pristine as the day it came into the house. I hope the blood pressure taking helps.
Joan, wow, a pristine oven. I can understand it, I don’t know how you cope with the hot temperatures in Arizona! Having lived all my life in a climate that has distinct seasons, and a long cold season, I cannot imagine what not using an oven would be like. For me it would be an adjustment, but humans are amazing, and do adjust.
Thanks re the blood pressure strategy, hoping t works, so far it hasn’t but I think it has to be given time.
On a lighter note – it would appear beetroot juice may help lowering blood pressure…….so….perhaps a glass each morning for a few days before your appointments might help with that – stressful feeling many of us get when someone is placing that cuff on our upper arm.
Closing my eyes, relaxing and breathing slowly is the way I cope when the cuff tightens and then is released slowly. Oh and if it’s pumped up again I’m all a worry wondering what number needed to be rechecked
It’s a standing joke in our house that ovens and me don’t get on
Take care
Cathy
Cathy, I have just read that! I would rather eat beetroot than drink the juice, will have to research that! Anything that does no harm but might work for me is worth a try! I love beets, so this one won’t be hard to do.
Cathy, I have tried meditative breathing, imaginative thinking, relaxing parts of my body… not successful so far. The machine they use at the clinic where I attend takes my blood pressure repeated times, at intervals, so I know that is coming as a matter of routine, it doesn’t mean anything, thank goodness!
I be there is a story behind your relationship with ovens!
I’ve found that my blood pressure is always higher at the doctor’s office. It’s usually stressful to go to see my doctor so I think it’s normal to see an elevated BP. I do take my BP at home but not regularly. I like your plan pf taking your BP daily!
Sandy, I think it is normal too. I think my plan could work, I am trying to get over worrying about the readings being high, and regard it as something of no particular consequence. If push comes to shove I will wear a montior again, before submitting myself to higher doses of meds, and mulitple meds.
It’s sounding like Attila needs to add an outdoor pizza oven to his to do list. Lol! Only half kidding. 😀
I have white coat syndrome, too. When a doctor takes my blood pressure I have to really work at calming down. You see, I tried one of those blood pressure cuff chairs in the drug stores about 20 years ago. It started tightening and just got tighter and tighter. I was about to scream for someone to help me when it suddenly let go, without showing any reading. I’ll never try one of those again!
A pizza oven sounds good to me 🙂
Your experience with a drug store machine sounds pretty traumatizing, glad it let of of you! They had one at the drug department at the Independent grocery store we stopped at when we lived at the country house. I tried it a few times, and luckily is wasn’t malfunctioning, didn’t even know they might do that. But now I know will think of you every time I see one of them, 🙂