(Note: I’m splitting this up into multiple parts due to its length and due to the fact that part 2 still needs work. And to add dramatic tension. Hang in there.)
I’m going to write about something that may or may not interest anyone, but I write it out of the hope that maybe I can pass along a little of what I have learned in a relatively short period of time. I have found in the many years that I have been writing semi-publicly, I have been surprised at the positive reactions I receive when I simply write from the heart. Today, ironically, it is about the heart that I write.
Or more specifically, cholesterol.
I have always been in reasonably good health--no major diseases, I don’t get sick very often, and I am fairly active. I ride a bike to work, (and recreationally--read here) I walk frequently, and I work on my feet in a fairly un-sedentary life. I would consider my eating habits--well, not the best, but I have only ever had a vague sense of caution about what I eat. For example, I have always known that it is not a good idea to eat a lot of fried food, and that maybe red meat all the time is not always such a good idea. Once, back in high school, I was so freaked out by something the health teacher said about bacon that I didn’t eat it for 2 years. I don’t eat fast food, because I hate the way it tastes, I don’t eat potato chips---I could go on, but the point is that I have always believed that my lifestyle and eating habits were much better than the average American.
But overall, that has meant that I have gone under the assumption that because I was “active” and “ate well” that I didn’t really need to think about things like fat content or nutritional content because after all, I’m not fat and I take vitamins, and beyond that, I also don’t smoke.
So little did I suspect that I would have a problem with high cholesterol.
I hadn’t been to a Doctor’s office in over 12 years until I got insurance and began seeing one regularly. The first time I went I was holed up for 2 hours while I was given every conceivable test and questioned extensively about “family history” and my own personal habits. I was given kudos for not smoking, chided slightly for a 3 to 5 beers a day habit (only partly as a bi-product of working in a bar for so many years) and overall given a clean bill of health.
The next time I visited, I was told that my blood-work was “excellent” but that my cholesterol was just barely on the higher end of okay--just under 200. I figured that was fine, and I wasn’t told to change anything, so I didn’t.
On a later visit, I was told that my cholesterol had risen--up to about 214, and I was given the Fear of God speech, about how cholesterol builds up in your system and takes 15 years to get to your heart, which would put me right on schedule for a mid-life heart attack. The Doctor wasn’t worried, because there was no history of this in my family, but it was merely a friendly warning. I left the office with the thought that the one thing I was absolutely going to change right here and now was to go back to my boycott of bacon that had been so successful almost 15 years ago.
Then a few days later, I got a phone call from the Doctor’s office. “We need to see you. It’s about your test results.”
That’s never a good sign. But I went through all the possibilities, crossed out the more unlikely ones--if I had cancer or something, they wouldn’t tell me, they’d send me to a specialist first, right?--and tried not to worry about it until I could actually know what it was.
I made an appointment and saw my usual Doctor’s counterpart, a man with whom I was unfamiliar. He gave me the bad news: my cholesterol number had shot up to 236, and they wanted to put me on medication…
How did this happen? How could a healthy person like me have such a problem like this?
At the risk of being overdramatic, I have a lot to live for. In addition to a wife who loves me enough to keep me healthy and many animals who need me, I have so much I want to do. I have always planned on living to an old age and always being mentally and physically capable to write (speaking of which...) and make music and otherwise make the world at least marginally better for other people. I want to write many great books and travel to see wild polar bears and none of the things I want to do can be done if I die or become incapacitated when I’m 50. So I need to stay healthy and for the first time in my life, I need to care about what I eat and what I do to stay fit and avoid costly medication or future hospitalization.
**********************
I told the Doctor “Wait, hold up,” and then told him that I needed some time to work on this before they put me on medication. Up to this point I had taken no steps to fix this, because no one had ever really told me how dire a situation it was. It was only then, sitting in that office that I became convinced that now was the time to take this seriously, that I could no longer “take my health for granted.”
I had to completely re-examine my life, and what I could do differently. Avoiding bacon is a good first start, but where else was I going wrong?
Next up: Things I love, but might have to cut down on…
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