A word about Free Enterprise and blood pressure monitors.

I found myself, yesterday, in the middle of Walgreens.

I was comparing the prices of blood pressure monitors, and not for U.L. or a grandmother. I was purchasing one for myself.

It seems I stay in a constant state of Stage 1 Hypertension, according to my third doctor’s appointment in the last month.

This, almost more than anything else, means I am now a bona fide Adult. Nothing says Welcome to Life like high blood pressure.

I brag a lot about how healthy I am, but the truth is I’m only doing that as a means of psyching myself out. I know all too well what lurks in my family’s gene pool: diabetes, heart conditions, depression, cancer, and more mental disorders than are legally allowed by the APA…at least, outside of Canada.

As much as I love America, and I do love America, I do panic quite easily when I realize that part of this great land of opportunity is knowing that one thing we learn and learn well in elementary school is the meaning of the word plural.

Panic, by the way, is not conducive to lowering high blood pressure.

Here’s what I mean: Unless the LifeSource blood pressure monitor can insert the Netflix DVD of 30 Rock, Season 2, into the DVD player, in addition to helping me keep track of my fluctuating blood pressure, (which changes, the doctor told me, constantly), it really isn’t any different, functionally, than the generic Walgreens brand.

In other words, one type of monitor should be sufficient. Singular, not plural.

Or, so, I would imagine.

Yet, there were no less than two fully stocked shelves dedicated to nothing but competing brands of blood pressure monitors. 

Now, I’m new to medical problems (my own, anyway), and I’ve really not had a plethora of free time to research the reason for so many different BP monitors. I wasn’t aware that one had to do that in order to buy one.

So, I was forced to do my research on-site.

The higher the price of BP monitor, it seems, the more gadgetry is included in the product. Past the $40 mark, you no longer had to manually pump the sleeve; the machine would do it, for you. Also, the people on the box were both more attractive, and dare I say it, looked more assured of an accurate reading than did the people on the BP monitor box I purchased, which came in just under the $35 mark.

So many choices of one simple item.

I’ll be the first to admit it: in this country, we have a love/hate relationship with one of the very cornerstones of our Free Enterprise: choice. This means, essentially, we have a problem with the country itself. I know I do, at least, where Free Enterprise is concerned. My relationship with consumerism is much like I imagine you’d feel after buying yourself a mail-order bride – you know it’s wrong, but at the end of the day, at least you’re not alone in the house. And if you don’t beat them, they’ll even cook you breakfast…I’ve been told.

It didn’t bother me one bit, my choice of BP monitor, until I got home and started to take my blood pressure.

I was consumed (you’ll get the pun later): Did I make the right call? Did I buy the right one?

What if my desire to save a few bucks was compromising my health?  Sure it was $10 more, but what’s $10 for a longer life?  What if the monitor I bought didn’t give me all the information I truly needed to show my doctor, and in the end, as I lay there on the couch, waiting for the ambulance, clutching my chest as the impending infarction (I’ve been waiting a long time to have a reason to use that word) took over my breathing and nerves, and the only voice I recalled as I took a step toward the Light was that nagging one in the back of my mind which sounds a lot like U.L. saying, Don’t you wish you’d gotten the other monitor, the one that recorded clot potential?

The first bullet in the Instructions Manual that comes included with the monitor states: It is recommended that you do not attempt a blood pressure reading when under stress. It is best to be as relaxed as possible.

I almost stood straight up, put the thing back in its box, and returned my monitor to Walgreens, right then.  I was so far under stress, I should have proposed afterwards.

It took me several, long, agonizing minutes, but I realized I’d simply become a victim of consumerism, myself. It’s diagnosable. This is what happens to us, in this country, because there are sometimes, too many choices. That may be fine and well as a necessary component of the American dream but it’s competing with a declining literacy rate. And that’s hardly what they mean by Free Enterprise.

We take the easy way out when we’re faced with too many options. For the sake of argument, let’s say the LifeSource was a much better choice of a BP monitor than the cheap, generic one I bought. Few and far between are the consumers who are going to read about the differences between the two. When all is said and done (and every now and then, read), we almost always go for what’s cheapest.

And if this is a true democracy, then cheapest is all you really need. Basic functions of any BP monitor ought to include, if nothing else, the mere conclusion of This Reading Means You Need A Doctor, or You’re Fine…For Today.

My average, no-frills, run-of-the-Chinese-Factory BP monitor does just this.

I don’t get a lot of joy out of it, though, since I’m already seeing a doctor. (Not socially, mind you).

What we need to focus on, in my opinion, is a BP monitor that doesn’t make you feel your arm is about to fall off. Those cuffs mean business, let me tell you.

But, then, so does this economy.

We strive to offer the consumer whatever he or she needs. For instance, after struggling, and hard, against the ridiculous desire I had to suddenly purchase a Snuggie, leopard-print, I browsed a few other products in my search for the aisle where the blood pressure monitors were located.

I found them, in the back, by the pharmacy, a few shelves above the DNA Paternity Home Test.

You heard me: a DNA Paternity Home Test.

At least I didn’t need to buy that, but I will say, as a form of mea culpa, I was glad I lived in a country that could give Maury Povich a job, while at the same time, giving us all an affordable reason to fire him.

That is, after all, what makes America, America.

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