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Title: Blood Pressure
Date: August 28, 2026

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  One of the things brought up by my current dentist visit
was my blood pressure. Yes, it was high at 148/111, but I
was also:

  1) In pain
  2) Fighting an infection
  3) Dealing with white-coat syndrome
  3) Dealing with Multiple days of sleep debt
  4) Dealing with a /lot/ of stress

  And yes, my blood pressure has been high, mostly because
of literal months worth of stress, and only getting about
3 hours of contiguous sleep at most at a time. Trying to
bring this up ended with a bit of dismisal, but nothing too
harsh. It just felt like I was being ignored at the time.

  So, now that I'm a bit more of-sound-mind, I've stared
keeping a log of my blood pressure, mostly as proof that,
while high, it's not nearly to the level it was when they
only took it /one time/ after I mentioned the issue with
white coat syndrome[^0]. Had they taken it again just 20
or 39 seconds later, it would've dropped quite noticeably.

  At the very least, I've got an appointment with a free
community dental clinic that I hope can handle the tooth
extraction quickly. Even if they can't deal with my broken
wisdom teeth (which wouldn't surprise me), this one molar
of the damned being pulled would help considerably. As a
backup, the dentist I saw will yank it for about $314, even
if I don't go in for the rest of their dental program [^1].

  Once this problem is take care of, I can get back to my
own little program to get my blood pressure down to a more
normal range without the stress of this potentially
life-threatening infection in my mouth. It'll mean being
able to exercise again, possibly get better sleep, and
getting back to eating better. I have *so* much veggie soup
still left, and I wanna experiment with it more[^2].

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[^0]: Basically, a psychosomatic issue where being in a
      medical office causes a spike in blood pressure. In
      my case, it's caused by trauma from growing up in a
      family of walking medical emergencies that I loved
      dearly.

[^1]: Yes, if you know of them and their reputation, it's
      Aspen Dental. Everyone else in town wanted $800+ for
      emergency extraction + handling the abscess.

[^2]: Black beans, pinto beans, brown lentils, celery,
      carrots, bean sprouts, corn, potatoes, grean beans,
      peas, diced and stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce,
      spinach, broccoli, veggie stock, green onion, sweet
      onion, and seasonings. I wanna try adding some
      cabbage, water chestnuts, and red lentils next time.