Partial update on me

[Becky]

Hi Susan

Some things you can do on your own besides losing weight which always helps is to walk and watch the sodium levels. Also, drink your daily 8 glasses of water too. Those are the only intuitive things I know of. You will be fine but you do have to get the blood pressure under control. I believe self meditation may help.

If you remember, halfway thru treatment, I switched oncs within the same practice and the original onc was also (and still is) my mom's onc. Everytime I would go there, my blood pressure was high (not as high as yours but high for me). I would see the old onc and he would treat me like I broke up with him at the Senior Prom!. I started getting in a zone when I would go. I would sit in the chair and imagine I was floating on a float in a swimming pool - I would close my eyes and imagine that and my blood pressure was normal. Maybe yours is high but it was higher today because of the "pressure" of it having to hopefully be lower. There is a "syndrome" for this and I think it is called the "White Coat Syndrome" in which the blood pressure goes up just from being at the doctor's office. Try visualizing next time. You will probably get a better picture of what your pressure really is next time.

Also, pharmacies tend to have those blood pressure machines. It is a private way to check on things yourself and see if the visualization really works - visualize something serene and then visualize something stressful - I bet you will see the difference.

I am sure your onc appointment went well too.