OnePhatMan

As my shoulder still hurts like hell from my weightlifting on Friday, I’m officially getting back off the weights for a bit.

This is getting old.

Today was annual physical day, the one day every year that I don’t particularly look forward to. Mostly because of the intimacy of it all, what with the prodding and squeezing of certain body parts and the insertion of fingers into others. All in all, not an experience I’d call pleasant.

The nurse took my blood pressure when she got me back to the examining room, and the results were unsatisfying, to say the least: 144 / 90.

Damn high.

I nodded at the rubber glove and tube of K-Y jelly she’d laid out for Dr. Judy, and glibly commented that those were the reason for my elevated blood pressure. We had a good laugh, and she continued what she was doing. My pulse was 72 beats per minute, also considerably higher than I expected. Or liked.

I laughed, but inside I freaked. 144 / 90 is high — medication high. I think my feelings about medication are well known. A close relative recently went on blood pressure medication and says they’re sucking all the get-up-and-go out of him. I don’t want to feel lethargic all the time; I spent too many years feeling that way.

Then there’s the fact that I’m not even 40. Far too young to have high blood pressure. Far too healthy. Far too in shape.

Dr. Judy did the physical. We talked about my blood pressure. Of particular concern was my memory that it had been high the last couple of times I’d been in to see her. She consulted my records.

“It was high last time,” she said. “But you were under a lot of stress then. Remember why you were here?”

Boy, did I. And I was definitely under a lot of stress over what turned out to be nothing.

“And the time before was when you hurt your shoulder,” she said. “If that’s not stressful, I don’t know what is. I just don’t believe you really have high blood pressure.”

Which, let me point out, was good to hear. I didn’t think I had high blood pressure either. I refused to believe I had high blood pressure.

Dr. Judy thought I really might just be stressed about the whole buttfinger thing, and wanted me to hang around for a few minutes after the physical was over so they could get another reading. I waited, and when the nurse took it again—this time using the other arm, just to see what it would yield—quite the surprise was waiting.

It had gone up to 150 / 90.

Dr. Judy got a little concerned, but stood by her statement that she didn’t think I really had high blood pressure. I was starting to have my own doubts. Sure, I’ve felt fine, but they don’t call high blood pressure “the silent killer” for nothing.

“Get a blood pressure cuff,” Dr. Judy said. “Start taking your blood pressure every day for 30 days. Do it at different times of day, not just when you first get up. Check it when you’re working, check it after workouts, check it right before bed. All different times so we can see what it’s doing. Come back then and we’ll talk about it.”

As soon as I got into the car, it started. The voice. The damnable, evil voice all fat or ex-fat people have living inside them. Don’t think you kill that voice when you get your weight down. I’m starting to wonder if it’s even possible to kill it.

Just give up, it said. Screw it. Don’t you understand yet that no matter what you do your body’s going to fail you? Sure, you got rid of diabetes and apnea. But look what you traded them for: a bum shoulder, a bum knee, and now this. Pick up some ice cream on the way home, eat it tonight, and you’ll feel better. You can deal with the high blood pressure tomorrow. Why don’t you just stop trying and eat?

I looked at myself in the rearview mirror. Thought about the last five years, and what they’ve been like compared to the previous five.

Because I don’t quit, I told it, and turned the key.

On the way home, I stopped at a drug store and bought a high-end sphygmomanometer, one of the really good ones that does everything for you. My logic was that if I had the fully automated one I couldn’t screw it up. I raced upstairs with it and perched on the edge of the bed, shirtless, while I hooked everything up.

My blood pressure was 123 / 79, and my pulse was 54 beats per minute. That’s more like what I’m used to. I checked on the other arm ten minutes later, just for grins. 119 / 73, with a pulse of 52 beats per minute.

I tell you all this to lead up to one point: even if you sometimes can’t control that little evil voice in you, you can certainly control what effect you let it have on you. I could’ve stopped for ice cream, buried my worries about my blood pressure in a half-gallon of frozen sugar, but what would it have bought me? Not a damn thing.

Don’t let the voice beat you. Face it down, and beat it, and you’ll be better for it.