Astra is shaking with fear. Even though her brother Acer is by her side and helping her to stay calm, she can’t get one simple fact out of her mind: she is at the doctor’s office, and she is afraid.
Acer assures her that everything will be okay, that this is simply a routine checkup that everyone must go through in order to ensure that they are healthy, but this does little to quell Astra’s worries. Deep down, she knows her older brother is right, but she still can’t help but worry.
“Astra?” a kind looking nurse appears at the door and inquires. Trembling slightly, Astra forces herself to get out of her chair and join the nurse. Sure, he looks kind, but what if he wants to give her a shot, or something worse? Astra never liked needles very much.
Perhaps sensing Astra’s concern, the nurse beckons to her, a friendly grin on his face. “Right this way, right this way,” he declares. “We’ll have you in and out in a jiffy!” Astra is still too nervous to speak, but she does feel a small grin appearing on her lips, albeit briefly.
Acer gives her his signature thumbs up sign, and Astra finally starts to realize that things might just end up being alright.
The nurse leads Astra to a brightly colored room with stars stenciled onto the ceiling.
“Alight, now,” he begins. “This should be pretty easy.”
With that, the checkup begins. Most of it is rather painless, if slightly uncomfortable. The nurse uses a stethoscope to listen to her heart, and then it is time to check Astra’s blood pressure.
“This will squeeze your arm a little bit,” the friendly nurse cautions as he attaches a fabric cuff to her arm. This cuff is connected to a wire, and this wire is itself attached to a screen with an overload of numbers and other information.
The nurse presses a button, and the cuff starts to squeeze Astra’s arm. It is pretty uncomfortable, but Astra, knowing it will be over soon, puts on a brave face. As the cuff continues to contract, Astra feels worried again. When will it stop? Where will it all end?
Almost immediately after Astra has this thought, she notices something: The cuff is no longer getting any tighter.
“The hardest part is over,” the nurse tells her.
And then, suddenly, Astra hears something. Click! The sound seems to be coming from the machine. Click! There is a beat of silence, and then another: Click! Astra notices, as the clicks continue intermittently, that the cuff is loosening with each one. In what feels like no time flat, the nurse is reaching his arm out and taking off the cuff. Astra flexes her arm: there is a slight stiff sensation, but it begins to feel more and more normal with each passing second.
There is, ultimately, only one question on Astra’s mind, and she asks it straight away: “What was that all about?”
The nurse chuckles slightly. “Measuring your blood pressure allows us to make sure your heart is healthy,” he explains, “We’re essentially looking at how and when your heart is beating, and from that we can tell whether or not it is working the way it should.”
“And is my heart working the right way?” Astra asks, almost afraid to know the answer.
“Yes… although, your blood pressure was just a little bit high, I’m afraid.”
And just like that, fear stabs through Astra once again. She doesn’t know exactly what that means, but it definitely doesn’t sound good.
Seeing her confused, anxiety-ridden face, the nurse gives Astra a calming smile. “It’s quite alright. Nothing to worry about, most likely. But all the same, I should ask you a few questions, just to make sure. How’s your diet? Do you eat plenty of fruits and vegetables?”
“Of course!” Astra responds. “Fruits, vegetables, grains, proteins… I eat them all!”
“Good, good. And how much exercise do you get?”
“I don’t even know! When I’m not running around for fun, I’m running around working on service projects with my friends and teammates!”
“I see, I see. Well, is anything making you feel nervous?”
“Why, no-” Astra pauses before going any further. She thinks back to the butterflies she felt out in the waiting room, the nerves that flared up again when she started getting her blood pressure taken. “-But I felt pretty nervous coming here today.”
“Ah-ha!” The nurse exclaims, eliciting a grin from Astra. “That will do it. That’s one of the difficult things about measuring blood pressure: there are so many reasons that it could be running high. It could be an unhealthy diet, or it could be a lack of exercise, which are both pretty big problems, but it could also just be because you’re feeling nervous or anxious. I’d wager that normally, your blood pressure isn’t this high, and that your heart is nice and healthy.”
Astra lets out a deep sigh of relief. “Thank goodness!” she declares.
“Sorry if I worried you a little back there,” the nurse tells her. “I’ve just got to make sure nothing’s wrong.”
Astra nods, flashing a grin.
“Now I’d better get Dr. Murphy in here. She’ll want to hear just how healthy you are!”
“Thank you for everything!” Astra tells the nurse.
“All in a day’s work,” he responds. He waves to her, and then leaves to bring the doctor into the room.
As Astra waits for the doctor to return, she begins to form an idea for a new service project: a service project focused on raising awareness for the importance of keeping your heart healthy by eating a balanced diet and getting plenty of exercise. She decides she will pitch it to Acer once her doctor’s appointment is over, but she is already certain that he will love the idea as much as she does.
