When we got home and listened to our messages on the home phone we had one from the “old” doctor indicating that we needed to go for a blood test and schedule a physical. So this just confirmed my decision to change doctors. I don’t think the staff for the doctor has any idea what they are doing and I’m sure the doctor has no idea what the staff is doing to her practice.

So we go to Doctor Delgado and explain what is going on. My blood pressure is out of control. It goes from very high to very low (it was low, very low, at the end of the last hiking section). There is no chest pain but I am out of breath very quickly when climbing hills. I have hiked 1000 miles and my stamina has not increased in that amount of time and in fact seems to have decreased. I do have chest pains from time to time but I believe that is heart burn and a simple glass of water seems to cure that and I have no pain on the trail. In general, my blood pressure is out of control and I just feel like something is wrong. After the general type of things that happen with a physical and finding nothing wrong they give me an EKG. Lenora and I are just talking while this is going on and the technician says “hum……”, I think I will do that again, please relax and no talking. She runs the EKG again, has a frown on her face, and indicates Dr. Delgado will be back with us soon. Obviously not good. Dr. Delgado does return in about 5 minutes and indicates the EKG is not normal and he tells me to go directly to the emergency room. I kind of hesitate and repeat his instructions with a question… You want me to go directly to the emergency room? Yes he says. By the way, my blood pressure at the Doctors was within normal range.

Lenora and I go out and get in the car and go directly to the Emergency room. Dr. Delgado has called ahead to let the emergency room know what it is all about. The emergency room is a mad house, and it is a really busy day for them. Even so, it does not take long for them to call my name and the nurse gives me another EKG to verify the results. The results are verified… I have an abnormal EKG. Apparently there are a lot of reasons for an abnormal EKG and so this is not necessarily a big red flag that gets your priority raised. I am sent back to the emergency waiting room with the following message “We are really busy today and the person waiting the longest out there has been here for over 6 hours. We are really sorry but you can expect it to take that long”. It is what it is. I have nothing to do anyway. I am calm and really have no anxiety at all. Whatever it is will be taken care of eventually and both the Doctor and the emergency nurse said the EKG, although abnormal, indicated I was in no immediate danger. While I was waiting, my blood pressure was taken about 4 times and each time it was taken the numbers were going up. It was as if I was under stress but I really was not. During the next 4 hours I also had my blood drawn for the express purpose of checking for enzymes to see if I had already had a cardiac event. Every time my blood pressure was taken or anything else was done I was asked how severe my chest pain was. Each time, I responded that I did not have chest pain and that my pain level was 0. There was no pain. I eventually, after about only 5 hours, was taken back to a room and hooked up to machines to monitor my heart rate, oxygen level, and blood pressure. Each time the blood pressure was taken, the numbers generally increased but also times when the numbers where normal and sometimes when they were low normal only to go higher. Simply out of control. They decided to admit me to the hospital so that they could run more tests. The only problem was that they were so busy there was no room at the inn. The cardiac unit had no free rooms. So they upgraded my bed to a regular hospital bed and I stayed in the emergency unit. By the time this decision was made it was about 1 am and this started about 3 pm. Lenora finally goes home to take care of the cats and to get some sleep. The first thing they do is give me a chest xray and indicate it is the cheapest and easiest diagnostic tool. I sleep pretty good at the hospital given that they are taking blood every couple hours to check that there has been no change and to do a full blood analysis. In the morning I have a stress test. The stress test they are given me has 3 parts. A 14 minute scan of my heart where I have to remain perfectly still. This may be difficult for some people but remaining perfectly still for 14 minutes is totally in my wheel house. After the image they give you a stress test. I figured a tread mill but they were going to give me a chemical stress test. Why not the tread mill I asked. Because we don’t want to increase your chest pain and we did not think you could handle it they say. I repeated that I have no pain in my chest and that I just finished 1000 miles on the PCT and I think I can handle the tread mill. Great they say because that is how we prefer to do it. Once you reach your target heart rate on the tread mill they give you a shot of something that is suppose to enlarge your heart a bit and then they do another scan of the heart. Using this information they can tell if there are any restrictions or blockages. I fully expected that a blockage would be found as that made sense to me. The treadmill experience was rather funny because the doctor that needed to give me the shot came in at the start. After watching me for awhile he dryly said that we were going to be here for awhile because my heart rate was not going up. The tread mill keep increasing in speed and elevation until it reached about 12 percent and I had to run to keep up with it. Once I started to run it did not take long to reach the 132 target heart rate. The shot was given, the second scan was done. There were no problems found. They did one final test which was a echocardiogram. This is an ultrasound of the heart where they observe its operation and take all sorts of measurements and pictures of the the heart at work. This was fascinating to watch. A cardiac doctor talked to Lenora and I and indicted nothing was wrong with my heart and that my blood work looked good. They were going to discharge me and send all the results to my Doctor and I should schedule another appointment with him. We had already scheduled a follow up with the Doctor for next Monday. The cardiac Doctor also said I should hike slower, rest more during the hike, and eat more to slow down the weight loss. This whole process took 23 hours and I was back home. So the EKG was a false alarm and could have been caused by the high blood pressure and weight loss that occurred too quickly OR I may normally have an abnormal EKG. Never having had one before there was no way of knowing

So my blood pressure is still really out of control with wild fluctuations and I still feel that something is wrong. We will see what happens when I see the Doctor again on Monday and he has had a chance to review all the results from the hospital. It will be up to him when I return to the trail.