It’s a bloody business

I went to the doctor last week because I get so many colds. David suggested maybe I have a vitamin deficiency. I love going to the doctor here because it is so simple. You call and make an appointment. You walk into the the waiting room, enter your name on a screen and wait until you are called. You don’t fill any forms out. No columns of boxes to tick asking about your medical history. When your name shows up on a screen, you walk into the doctor’s office and chat for a while. She writes down on a piece of paper: "Monday 11:30, bloodwork and ECG.” Literally a little scrap of paper. Off you go.
You go back at the appointed time, (today) repeat the check-in process until you are called. I got all wigged out this morning because I remembered I don’t have a good track record with needles. Giving blood and/or painful injections cause me to black out. I’ve learned the hard way this is due to vasovagal syncope--the vasovagal nerve screams Battle Stations! when a needle invades, with the result that my blood pressure drops and, on a bad day, I start going into shock. I warned the phlebotomist of this problem and it worked out fine--mainly because she didn’t take very much blood.
Then she wired me up for the ECG. The doctor didn’t like that my heart rate, or pulse, was 44. Today it was 43. If I could dig up records from a physical I had done in the early 1990s, I think it would show the same. What can I say, I’m just really chill.
I took it easy the rest of the day, even though the house needs cleaning, the laundry needs washed, the hedges need trimmed, and I’d like to go to a driving range. But the weekend in Portrush took a lot out of me. Partly because I was around chatty people the whole time, which I find an exhausting change from my solitary life. I need something in between silence and unbroken chatter.
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