It’s about 4:00 AM at this exact moment and I’m being kept awake by my cardiovascular system. Since Christmas, possibly longer, I’ve been struggling with high diastolic blood pressure, and elevated systolic pressure. My diastolic, at least when we’ve managed to measure it, has reached 99 mm/hg and that one saw me in the ER on New Years Eve pretty much exactly in the window of 11:30-12:30. My arrhythmia and tachycardia have been severe as well.

Since then, I’ve been trying to rest and keep my pressure down. I’ll be seeing a cardiologist soon – the first one since I was asked to leave the disautonomia clinic I was in due to my refusal to complete a test that would’ve made me radioactive for a year and raise my cancer risk. I’m worried it’ll be a repeat of my past experiences: a doctor using me as a guinea pig instead of helping me live my life as comfortably as possible. But, I’ve heard good things, so I’m hopeful.

As I’m lying here, I’m wracking my brain for what else could possibly be wrong if it isn’t a genetic predisposition, stress, or my conditions causing the raise in blood pressure. Could be an infection, or maybe a virus, or an unusual imbalance in electrolytes…. but more likely than not, as usual for me, it’s probably just my body doing something new. And that’s frustrating.

I was born about 3 months early, and we’ve got this running hypothesis that being so early made my body and nervous system a bit different than most. A more hypersensitive, vulnerable system to outside stimuli – including stress and the normal passing of time. I have zero non-anecdotal evidence for it, but I don’t think we’re too off.

If we aren’t, is this just my body failing me? Did one day come along and my body decide “now we’re gonna do migraines” and then a few years pass and it’s “screw migraines, muscle twitches are the new thing” then “twitches out, gastroparesis in” on to “time for high blood pressure!”. I’ve dealt with a lot of random, and annoying problems, but none of them posed as much threat to my health as an extended time with high BP. It’s frustrating, and a little scary, to see how quickly things can change (and it’s not the first time).

I could lay down and be miserable about it, or I could spend all my time thinking about the good things in my life, but I don’t think either of those is healthy. They might work for some, but for me personally, I prefer the middle ground: Rest, and accept the negative feelings that show up, and remind myself that it could be so much worse.

I don’t want to tell anyone else how to handle their own personal health experiences; this is just how I do it.

Tomorrow, my body could decide to work in a way that doesn’t make me feel sick, or it could get worse. I’d prefer to just move forward and hope for the best while preparing for the worst.