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i realized late last night that my annual physical appointment was at 11am instead of 10am. that meant an extra hour to get ready. sandy was still home when i woke up at 9:30am. i was afraid she'd decided to work from home again today. the smallest thing could give her an excuse not to go down to the office: too cold, rainy, snowy. feeding my fish, i noticed something was off: there were 9 tetras instead of 10. maybe i miscounted since they're hard to spot when they're all swimming around the tank. i left the house by 10:20am, sandy was still nowhere to be seen.

it was a cold morning with temperature hovering in the teens. thankfully it wasn't as windy as yesterday and i didn't have to ride into a headwind. i did regret not wearing mittens instead of gloves, as my fingers hurt from the cold. my eyes teared up but instead of streaking down my cheeks i think they froze and simply dropped from my face. when i arrived at MGH/charles i parked my bike to a signpost just off of the bridge.

checking in at hospital i was given a tablet to fill out the questionnaire that used to be paper. it was attached to an oversized rubber case, partly to protect it from accidents, partly to keep it from getting stolen. before i even had time to begin the online questionnaire a nurse was already calling me in to get some preliminary measurements (height, blood pressure, weight, blood oxygen level) before leaving me in one of the waiting rooms. i had one of the few rooms with windows. i didn't have to wait long before my doctor showed up.

i didn't have much to report. i told my doctor i've been playing around with arduino and raspberry pis, turns out he's been doing the same: he made a light turn blue if it's going to rain in the morning. i asked if he was still biking, he said yes, but parks at alewife and rides the rest of the way into boston. i told him about my persistent dry cough, he said i should try an albuterol inhaler to see if it'll clear it up. i told him about the wart on my right temple that seems to be coming back. he said he'd refer me to a dermatologist who will must likely just shave it off once more.

the doctor checked the blood pressure readings on my cuff, saw that some numbers were fine, but there were still some occasional elevated blood pressure. he said he'd switch me from losartan to valsartan (which i've used before to some success) and see if it'll do anything. prior authorization are unnecessary now as the patent on valsartan (brand name diovan) expired back in 2012. he told me to take valsartan for a month, monitor my BP numbers, then come in to get all my lab work done at that time. i was a little disappointed, as i'd psyched myself up for the needle today, so he said if i really wanted to, i could get blood drawn today as well as in a month.