my blood pressure was taken, as is normal for a physical. 118/79 is a little high for me, but pretty healthy. pulse: 62. a little weak on first glance, maybe. but, it is consistent with the amount of walking that i do (and my low cholesterol). that is, i appear to have the cardio-vascular health of a professional athlete. and, the truth is that i probably walk enough to more or less mimic the exercise routine of one. that was another two and a half hours of walking, today.
also, bmi: 19.9.
...so, it's just more evidence that i am ridiculously healthy. i'm uber-mensch. really.
but, i noticed when she was taking my blood pressure using the cuffs that it felt a little tight. i've noticed this before and asked them to be very gentle when they're doing it, because it tends to flat out hurt. i'm uber-mensch, but i'm also kind of delicate.
a flower?
anyways.
as per usual, it kind of hurt. it even left a bruise, which is now entirely healed, because uber-mensch. so, i made a mental note to make sure i'm more firm on the need to be gentle, next time.
when i got into the doctor's office, i looked down at my hand and noticed the inside of my thumb was swollen and throbbing and blue, as though cutting off the flow of blood had created some kind of backlog, which pooled the blood, making it physically looked like a giant, swollen bruise.
i asked him if he thought it was from the blood pressure cuffs being too tight (which seems to be the obvious cause), and he said it kind of made sense but he'd never seen it before, and it's kind of unbelievable that i could be that delicate, given that i'm so healthy.
maybe it's raynaud's disease, he said, which looks something like this:
he also suggested lupus, and proposed some bloodwork.
...but, i didn't see the need to come up with any other cause than the blood pressure cuffs and stuck with this story, however unlikely it may have been. it was mostly back to normal when i left, and is totally fine, now.
for, me this was actually one of those situations where you dread something happening for years and are kind of torn between being sure it will eventually happen and certain it never will....and then when it finally happens in front of you, you're kind of half excited and half mortified, and not really sure what to do.
at least i was in the doctor's office, right?
i need to be very strict about ensuring they are extra gentle, next time.