Chemistry, Part 2

Sept 26, 2017

A quick update: HAH!

My blood work is back, and it is RIGHTEOUS. I am doing a Victorious Warrior Dance and I invite you to join me; we are dancing a thumping, aggressive circle around the fallen bodies of my poor health; we shake bottles of water fiercely and menace the corpses with foam rollers!

Look:

In March, my fasting blood sugar was 126. That’s high; it’s supposed to be between 65 and 99.

Today it is 94. NORMAL.

My A1C (which looks at blood sugar over the last few months) is 5.7. This allows the grumpy nurse to look at me in triumph. “Normal is 4.8 to 5.6. YOU ARE PRE-DIABETIC.”

My reply? “Nerts to you, Betty Lou. Don’t get so excited. Watch me.”

What else? Ah – cholesterol. It was 255 in March. (Normal is 100 to 199, now that they have drugs that can lower cholesterol artificially; before those drugs existed, the safety line was 240, but let us not diverge into a bitch session about who owns or influences the FDA.)

Today it’s 189.

GrumpyNurse is at pains to point out that my good cholesterol still isn’t high enough and my bad cholesterol isn’t low enough, but I put up the shame-deflecting Hand of Chip. “Don’t even,” I said. “Let’s take a moment to admire that 189, shall we?”

Everything else is improved and in the “normal” range except my calcium (which is one-tenth of one percent below normal; clearly my body adjusting to the dramatic decline in ice cream!) and vitamin D, which while low is still twice what it was in March. I’m going to take vitamin D supplements for eight weeks. They’re the prettiest clear cobalt blue pills you ever saw; like swallowing fine jewelry.

That’s my report. Join me in a war whoop?