Blood pressure

Matt and I are getting life insurance. After the tragic and untimely death of a friend and his son a few weeks ago, I realized that the hardest part for me to imagine was not how our friend and his little boy could be lost forever, but how his partner (long time girlfriend, mom to his son) could possibly ever recover. And part of that is the sadly real financial aspects of it- how will she pay the rent while mourning? How long will it be before she is capable and comfortable with rejoining the workforce? How will she pay for grief counseling, should she need it?

So I applied for and bought some sensible life insurance for us, which requires a blood, weight, urine and blood pressure test. I wasn't allowed to eat for 12 hours because it was a fasting test, so I had a huge delicious dinner and then had the appointment scheduled for bright and early in the morning.

8am is not my happiest time of day. I arrived at the doctor's groggy, hungry, and undoubtably low blood sugared. It was cold out and still sort of low light. The nurse tattled along and went to take my blood pressure. "Do you know what it normally is?" "Oh, I forget, but it is almost always quite low."

And it was. First measure- 80/40. Second- 80/40. She looked puzzled. "You feel OK?" I reassured her. "I'm fine- I'm just tired and you told me not to eat anything."

She found a smaller cuff for my thin little arm (in her words) and tried a third time. 85/40. Wooo!!!

I had to laugh. My blood pressure has historically been quite low, and pregnancy plays weird tricks with your circulation. Normally a BP of 80/40 is rated "Hypotension" which according to the charts will make you feel weak and tired. A little lower than that and you'll get borderline fainting-prone. I've actually had doctors advise me to eat a little more salt, and once someone asked me, "Are your hands always cold?" I'd say more like icy, thank you very much.

Just last week I had my blood pressure taken at the OBs and it was perfectly normal, if a little on the lower end. So I know it isn't a problem.

The moral of the story? All those years of saying, "I'm not a morning person" and "I hate skipping breakfast" were not my imagination. And why is it so hard for me to wake up in the morning? Hmmmm...