This morning I’ve been gently jogging with my preparation to return to duty. The next several weeks will have quite a lot of primary school work, including several assemblies.

This afternoon was all medical. First, I went for my pre-op assessment ready for my nose job on the 19th. It wasn’t quite as straightforward as I hoped. 

The complication is my blood pressure. I’ve been seeing a practice nurse at our GP surgery for two years about. It has been reporting slightly high for comfort, around 140/90 instead of 120/80. Knowing that my body displays involuntary instant stress reactions, the decision was made to treat me not with a blood pressure drug, but a stress one, and so I have been on Propranalol in varying doses ever since. 

However, with the stress reactions, I tend towards what the medics call ‘White Coat Syndrome’. That is, I give higher readings in a surgery than the comfort of my own manse. So before my nurse appointments, I borrow a blood pressure machine for a week and take my own readings.

This afternoon at the hospital, out came the White Coat Syndrome. With a vengeance. 170/116. The nurse who interviewed me was relaxed given the background, but the doctor wasn’t. He said that if my body went into stress on admission day, then it really wouldn’t matter if WCS was the cause, an anaesthetist would say that the surgery shouldn’t proceed. I needed to see my GP urgently.

Which, fortunately, I was already booked to do later this afternoon. I had gone for my annual blood test on Monday, and on Wednesday the surgery had rung, asking me to make an appointment with a doctor, because my cholesterol was high. The GP said we’d better not bother about the cholesterol for now and just concentrate on the blood pressure. He couldn’t understand why I’d never been put on proper BP medication as well as the Propranalol, and promptly prescribed it. He also asked me to book an ECG with one of the nurses, and take another blood test in a month to ensure the new medication wasn’t interfering untowardly with my kidneys. So now we hope the new drug has enough effect in the next ten days for me to have the nasal operation as planned.

Beyond that, here’s my favourite link of the day: Maggi Dawn on why the legalities associated with marriage were brought in to protect women.