Dr. Hister gave her his usual less-than-thorough examination — eyes, ears, nose, knees, throat — then pumped the blood-pressure cuff until Shelly’s arm felt ready to explode like a marshmallow in the microwave. “I don’t get it,” the doctor said. “You’re an energetic woman, mid-thirties, and skinny as a rail, but you have the blood pressure of a sixty-year-old obese man.” He adjusted his hexagonal glasses, pressing them back against his face. “Are you taking your Lasix?” His bald head glared in the overhead florescent lighting.
Jittery, she ran a hand through her blond hair. “Every day. Right on schedule.”
“Maybe we should increase the dose. Or switch to a different drug. What’s best is that you keep calm…”
Shelly tried, but there was always something: traffic at a standstill, a slow waitress, news of the war, a call from her ex — not even an argument, just a few words of checking in after hello. It set her off and sent her into what she assumed was hypertension.
"…and maybe practice your breathing.”
“Slow and steady,” she replied. “I do that.”
“In through your nose and out through your mouth.”
“Sure.”
“Good. Well, I’ll write you a new prescription. You can pick it up at the desk on your way out. Maybe it’ll help with the moths and glitter bugs.”
Shelly nodded. She didn’t say that she also heard crickets fiddling from inside a tin can in her ear.
Shelly liked to tell folks her husband left her for a man — it made a good story — but the truth was she moved out because Jonathan didn’t know how to deal with her illness. She would describe her sudden headaches as being like a block of wood eaten up by termites, or she’d tell him how her shoulders felt as if bees had stung her there, and Jonathan would say, “I wish there were something I could do,” then close