Healthy Still

About a month ago I went to my nurse practitioner and had a physical exam. While that was a relatively benign experience it has had some interesting results. Mostly because she sent me off to have some other tests. The first ones were the easiest.

1. Some blood work - oops my cholesterol is high - Ouch! Don't worry just take some more pills. Okay, part of me is fine with that. Taking pills is easy, but really, shouldn't I be more careful of my diet? I have been really bad lately, eating out a lot and just eating what I feel like not what is necessarily healthy. I'll do better - I'm not really going to be happy with "just take some pills." More Kneaders and less hamburgers and fries. More chicken, less beef, more veggies and fruits, more fiber. Last week I bought some grapes and just kept them on my desk at school and snacked on them all week - it was really great. I bought some more grapes this week and got the wrong kind and just threw them away. Rats!

2. A bone density scan - everything is great, no problems. Someday I'm going to figure out how come I have sore hips and shoulders and sometimes knees. No arthritis yet, just sore joints.

3. A brain MRI - I often wake up with headaches - really bad ones. So this was the first test for that. Everything normal. My brain is not going to explode even though it sometimes feels like it. I guess that is a good thing.

4. A passive sleep test - I wore a pulse oximiter on my finger all night. Results - low oxygen during the night - go see a sleep doctor.

5. I went to see the sleep doctor yesterday. He was very nice and very talkative. I was his last patient of the day and he was just in the mood to visit. Ok, whatever. Before I went in to see him he had me fill out a little questionnaire about how likely I was to fall asleep in certain situations. He said I'm a very sleepy person. Now, I've felt like I was a very tired person, but it isn't something you can really measure very well. Has he now given me permission to be sleepy all the time? He agreed with me, I'm sleepy. Hum.... It is crazy, I take a caffeine pill in the morning to wake up and sometimes I take a sleeping pill at night to go to sleep. It often takes me and hour or more to fall asleep at night. Of course, I can fall asleep during the day without much problem. Last night was particularly bad - 2 1/2 hours to fall asleep with the sleeping pill and I just couldn't wake up this morning. Yuck! How much of that is because he validated that I am a sleepy person? I don't know. Anyway, the results is that Friday night I get to go sleep at a sleep center. The first question is, do I have sleep apnea? Now, I know that Devn has it and has it pretty bad. I suspect my mother had it. Sleep apnea is bad because it is hard on your heart and every other important organ in your body. It tends to cut your life short. Basically as you get older sometimes your trachea and throat collapse when you sleep and cut off your breathing. This wakes you up and you never reach the really important parts of sleep. This can happen even though you don't realize you're waking up. So I'll go in Friday night and they will attach all kinds of wires to me. Really, around my eyes and nose, in my hair, my chest and even my legs and arms. They "say" that I should be able to sleep just fine, we'll see. Then if they decide that I have sleep apnea I get to use a CPAP machine at night. Oh, fun (sarcasm font needed)

6. This one hasn't happened yet, but I'm NOT excited. I get to have a Colonoscopy. Oh, I'm excited for that! (more sarcasm) They say it's not bad, just the prep is bad. Yeah, right. I've heard the prep is REALLY bad. Well, that isn't even scheduled yet. I'm sure it will be an experience.

Really, the results of all of this is that I'm basically healthy. I'm not as young as I used to be and sometimes they just tell me that. I will be glad if they can figure out why I have headaches in the morning and help me to be less of a "sleepy person."

So, there it is. Your mother/grandmother will be around for a long time to come and will live to a good old age. I'm not entirely sure that is good news for you. I'm never going to be able to afford retirement and at some point I won't be able to work any more. YUCK! I really don't want to live to be 90. Please remember that if it ever comes up.

Also, I am including in this post (as I'm sure you've noticed) a picture I had taken of myself in case I decided to apply for an overseas teaching position. I never used it but it is a good picture, so I'm posting it here and you are welcome to do with it what you will.