My primary physician realized I had high blood pressure in the summer of 1993, though I didn't have a lot of time to worry about it; I was planning a fall wedding in the U.P. I dutifully trotted across the street from the newspaper office to the fire hall to have the chief take my blood pressure once a week but didn't pay much attention to it. (Part of the problem was my lack of connection with numbers. It was only much later, on a "field trip" with fellow newspaper hacks to see "The Paper" that I realized the EMTs yelling out Marisa Tomei's blood pressure as they wheeled her out of her apartment were accurately quoting my typical resting blood pressure. That helped put it into context.)
We had the wedding, the honeymoon and were settling into life as marrieds when my doctor sent me to get an ultrasound to "rule out" PKD. The guy running the machine asked what I was in for, and I blithely told him "Oh, just to make sure I don't have polycystic kidney disease."
This was a really young guy who apparently hadn't inculcated the "I can't tell you anything until the specialist reviews the film" speech, because he replied, "Oh, you've got it, all right. See?"
And he turned the screen toward me so I could see, instead of smooth tissue, a proliferation of cysts, just like those in the last post's PKD photo.
I staggered out to the waiting room while they made sure the images were clear enough, and sat there with tears running down my face. You go along thinking you're a relatively healthy person and in one second, everything changes. I still feel guilty about that morning -- it was obvious all the other women sitting there were there for prenatal ultrasounds, and they probably thought I lost a baby.
This was less than 4 months after Randy and I were married. That really puts the whole "in sickness and in health" part of the wedding ceremony in perspective.
Since then, it's been a long time waiting and watching for things to get worse -- and they do.
