Pumper-upper

There is absolutely nothing that will get my blood pressure 'pumper-upped' more quickly that a trip to visit my Doctor.  Seriously!

Yesterday was my annual check-up.  You know the one required...or else the insurance company, (or whoever the power to be is), just might not renew your next prescription.  Shoot!  Yep, I got a message kind of like that with the last prescription I had filled.  So, off to the doctor I went.

Of course, the first thing they want to do is weigh and measure me. Okay, I'm overweight at bit, but for some reason that does not seem to bother them any more...does not bother me either.  What does bother me is that I have shrunk to 4'11.5 inches.  I get the feeling that people are soon going to begin patting me on the head as though I am the family pet.

Then, the nurse rolled in the portable blood pressure machine, I warned her the reading was going to be high, as I absolutely hate coming to the doctor's office.  It was high.  She lowered the table so my toes actually touched the floor, advised me I should not cross my legs at the ankle and to take deep breaths.  I did as I was told.  All the while in my head I'm saying over and over...relax, relax, relax. When she re-did the test my pressure had returned to normal.

Whew.

I was surprised had how technical things had become since my last visit, even the thermometer was disposable.  Another thing that surprised me was that I had no desire to touch anything in the office. Normally I would have grabbed an 'older than dirt' magazine and perused it while going through the normal 'wait' times, but this time I thought about all the people who had perused the magazine before me, and all the germs and gunk that was probably on it, deciding it was probably the 'better part of valor' not to touch the magazines or anything else for that matter.

Anyway, my doctor finally entered the room and we went over all the medications I was currently taking, how I was feeling, etc, etc.  It went great until she asked about my exercise program (insert snickering here).  Maybe twice a week I make an attempt at some sort of exercise, if working in the yard and pushing my vacuum cleaner around the house counts...I'm assuming that's what she meant...(insert more snickering here).

I told her exercising was difficult to work into my daily routine, and that the only way I could make it a routine was if she called me every morning...we both had a good laugh over that.  I told her I worked every morning at my on-line store and explained what that was, and she was happy I was busy, but that I still needed to exercise at least two days a week.  Then, at the completion on my exam she left the room and told me, to wait for paperwork.

I got the paperwork, folded it in half and put it in my purse.

I stopped by the lab for blood work, went to breakfast with my daughter, stopped at Joanns, then came home to study my paperwork. And there, in bold print, close to the top of the first page was the following:

Zazzle is your reward time each day AFTER you have done your exercise.  Have fun!

Well, I would not exactly call exercise fun, but I did get the message, and this morning I exercised for almost 20 minutes.  Then I sent her an e-mail to tell her.  I also said I had heard (somewhere) that it takes about a month to establish a habit, and I was going to try.  I said I had printed out her note and that I was going to tape it to my computer monitor as a daily reminder I had to do a workout of some kind before starting work.

I can do this!  At least I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....as the little train said as it puffed, puffed, puffed up the hill.