Thursday 20 August 2009

I'm Wired For Sound

I'm not really, but I am hooked up to an ambulatory blood pressure monitor for 24 hours. My blood pressure has been a bit on the high side recently when my GP has checked it even though I am on medication for it, albeit a low dose. However, what was more worrying was the fact that I seem to have a very high pulse rate even when I am at rest. The net result of this is 24 hours hooked up to this machine which takes my blood pressure every 30 minutes.

Unfortunately my GP's surgery does not have one of these machines so I had to go to another surgery in the area. The reception staff there were very helpful, both when I phoned to make the appointment and again today, and the practice nurse who fitted me with the monitor was very friendly and helpful too.

So for the next 24 hours I will hear the occasional bleep, the cuff on my arm will inflate, I will undoubtedly get pins and needles in my hand, and then the cuff will gently deflate once the reading has been taken. In the meantime I am supposed to carry on with all the normal things that I would be doing, which this afternoon will include a little bit of crocheting because I had a new delivery of yarn this morning and I am going to make a shawl out of granny-style squares, although these are a little different in that they have the appearance of a flower at their centre and the yarn is variegated in colour so the shawl is called the Flower Garden Shawl (but I'm not doing it in the colours shown on the pattern). Once I have a few squares finished I shall photograph them and add them to the blog so that you can see how each of the squares looks different to the others even though they are all being made from the same yarn.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The 24 hour test sounds pretty grim to sleep with. Hope yolu get a good nights sleep, Hannah X

Achelois said...

Hope the 24 hr monitor is enough to find out whats causing the problem. My husband suffers from white coat syndrome which means his blood pressure rockets whenever a medically qualified person takes it, which embarrasses him a lot. If it doesn't find out whats going it may be worth asking for a referral to a cardiologist. Also hope you get some sleep. Looking forward to seeing the photo's. You are so industrious with your crafting I seem to be suffering from knitting block still! Take care.