Taking My Sister's Blood Pressure

Doing something new every week isn't so difficult when you think about the different skills and talents of the people around you. If I always tried to do something artistic, or something that involved running or yoga, or I would be running out of ideas pretty quickly. So I need to do things that are foreign to me, or at least feel foreign. Looking around me, there are plenty of options and plenty of teachers. It is all a matter of getting outside myself. This experiment of doing something new every week has brought me greater appreciation for the knowledge and contributions of friends and family.

My younger sister Tiffani is in her first year of a nursing program. Recently she mentioned that one of the new things I could do is learn to take someones blood pressure, so that's what we decided to do tonight. In under a half hour, I learned the basics--although just the very basics of course--of this medical process. It is simpler than I imagined. My sister has taken my blood pressure a couple times as practice for school, and it looked like she was counting. I thought there must be some kind of equation in her head; now I've discovered it is more a matter of focus than anything else.

I learned how to put on the blood pressure cuff, with a few initial mistakes. Yes, even putting the cuff on facing the right way is important to remember but easy to forget when its the first of half a dozen new steps. I needed to be reminded of the correct position of the stethoscope as well. How to correctly wear a stethoscope was never an occurrence in my brain until tonight. A doctor could have worn hers incorrectly and I wouldn't even have noticed. (Not that this is my point; I highly doubt this happens too often.) Now if I were the doctor, at this point my skill would be pretty embarrassing because I'd probably have the patient rolling his eyes at me and telling me I'm not supposed to find his pulse with my thumb. (Because your thumb also has a pulse, you're not supposed to check a pulse with your thumb because it is a less accurate read.) Yet I do know how to take someones blood pressure now, thanks to my sister, and the exciting thing for me is that I will actually understand what is happening when my own blood pressure is being taken. This might sound like a small reward, but the more we learn about the world, the more the world has to offer us, so there is an appeal for the added comprehension.

It was the fourth time of taking my sister's blood pressure that I was able to give a reading and understand what she was explaining to me. After I have the blood pressure cuff adjusted, and on correctly, and the stethoscope on, facing the right way, I pump air into the cuff until I can no longer feel her pulse. At this point, I release the valve from the cuff with my stethoscope slightly below the cuff. The key is to release it slowly, especially for a first-timer like me, or there won't be enough time to get both readings. When the blood rushes back through the vein, this sound indicates the systolic pressure. Then, with my sister's arm, I heard the pulse beat about four times, slowly getting fainter, and the final sound of the pulse was the diastolic pressure. And then she was dead. No, of course I didn't kill her, but I don't understand exactly why the sound becomes fainter at that point. It must just be the pressure in the arm returning to normal. It is interesting though, and once I had done it and understood what she was telling me, I did feel pretty excited about it.

Afterwards my sister tried to take my dad's blood pressure and she couldn't hear anything. After the second time she realized the bottom of the stethoscope was turned and was not transmitting any sound. So the teacher embarrasses herself in front of the student! That's alright though; it made me feel comfortable to see that even someone who's been doing it much longer than me will make occasional mistakes. I was still learning from her mistakes, and perhaps she was also learning from mine. This is a meaningful new experience this week; it helps me better understand what my sister is doing. Like learning to play chess last week, there is also a fascinating realization that the basic understanding is not nearly as complicated as we expect.