Nine
… take away 5 equals 4. As in a.m., the hour this morning when we wearily slunk back into bed after an impromptu visit to the hospital.
Last night, as she often does before turning off the lights, AL hooked herself up to the blood pressure machine. By now she’s been taking it long enough that we know to expect a range of readings. But she usually trends low rather than high, so when the so-called low or bottom number (diastolic pressure) came back a bit elevated she dutifully waited a little, and then took it again. Still highish, so again with the wait and retry. High again, a little more so even.
And so it progressed, with readings that continued to climb over the next 45 minutes or so. When the low number reached 98 we looked at each other, she took the cuff off her arm, and we put in a call to the hospital as we began to gather our gear. Time for another gambol along the winding path through Preeclampsia Meadows.
Four hours later we were back, completely wiped but grateful to be wrong. All’s well, no preeclampsia, baby’s hanging out in there fine. While they couldn’t tell us exactly why AL was getting such high readings, the seemingly best theory was a combination of anxiety and taking the readings too frequently on the same arm.
Among the other kerfuffle of the day was the indignity visited upon our normally majestic furball Chaka.
After we were done with him, the poor guy couldn’t even bring himself to face the camera.
Yes, we are the kind of people who get their cat groomed … it’s utterly humiliating. But he fights getting brushed, and if we let it go eventually his hair becomes all matted and pulls at his skin. So we’re practicing the it’s-for-your-own-good/this-hurts-me-worse-than-it-hurts-you maneuver on our cat in anticipation of putting it to many good years of service parenting the hairless baby. This one’s a big baby, too. He freaks out in the cage and so spends the whole time to and from the groomers flattened against my chest with his face buried ostrich-style up under my chin.
As a result, I now feel like I just stuck my face in a bowlful of dander and stirred it all around with my nose. Ridiculous cat’s not the only one who took one for the team today.
So now I’m tired, covered in cat hair, and struggling to breath. I’ll have to remember this and count myself lucky when I’m only tired and covered in baby vomit.
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