Life by the Numbers

Once again time to get the oil check.  This time my checkup is before what I called the Season of Food.  The time starting with Thanksgiving and runs until Valentine's Day.  It also happens to be the time Egg Nog is freely available in the Grocery store.  Everywhere you turn someone is trying to push something down your gullet: Thanksgiving, Christmas Parties, Work Banquets, End of the Year Functions, New Years, Super Bowl, My Birthday.  All I can say is THANK GOD for my Stepper, Exercise, and Modern Pharmaceuticals.

A1c :   6.8 (Down from 6.9)  Yippie!

BP: 128/80 (Was 122/80) 

Res: 16 (16)

HR: 62 (Was 80, I don't think the nurse can count.)

Cholesterol: 133  HDL: 34  LDL: 87  TRI: 60 

Bonus:  I lost 2 pounds, but I think It's just me pulling my keys, phone, wallet, pocketknife, and other crap out of my pockets before I step on the scale.

However, I have notice dropping two pants sizes.  My pants now keep slipping from my waist to my knees if I am not careful.   I must say I'm a fine piece of ass from the waist below,  but now it looks like I have a beer gut.   Tummy fat is always the last to go.

Life by the Number

BP: 122/80
HR: 80 Beats per Minutes
Res: 16
A1c:  6.9%!

Hallelujah!  A1c is below 7.0.  It has been a long road, and it is just a rest stop.  Giving up diet soda does wonders. And Exercise really does wonders as well.  Gotta keep using the Stairmaster in the basement.  Buns of steel here I come.  (I still have a Beer gut even though I'm not a big beer drinker.  I think it's the donuts for breakfast.)

Life by the Numbers (Sort of)

I'm at the Iowa City Juneteenth Celebration at Mercer Park.  The DeGowin blood center  is there running their blood drive as part of the events.  So why not?!?  I've been busy for the past severals month so draining a a unit would be great for my karma. After screening and getting blood data ( 148/94 not great but ok for donating and Hcrit of 42% Thanks god for red meat) I sit down to wait.

There are a couple of college students ahead of me and a another student waiting next to me.  The college student next to me starts talking to his girlfriend in the donating chair.  A start teasing her.  Telling her not to look at her arm, and try not to faint.  She does and start turning pale.  Blam! She is in the chair and out like a light .  Never seen anyone faint before.  Her eyes glazes over and the donating team goes nuts.  The guy sitting next to me has that "OH SHIT!" look.  I turn to him and say, "Dude, she is so going to kill you and you just blew any good karma you were hoping for here."  He grins and says, "Yeah, but she'll be down for at least two hours and that gives me a head start."  I give my unit and go home with the High Priestess, Technowitch and friend in tow.

I go home take a nap in the basement.  I get up and go upstairs to start cooking dinner.  I promise the High Priestess I'd cook the chicken tonight.  I grab the cook book and start thumbing through it.    My heart thumping like a bad dubstep song and I sweating like a pig at a Hawaiian Luau.  I go wash my hands to get started cooking....

Next, I'm on the floor looking up and see more people in my kitchen than I have ever had in my life.  The High Priestess is calling my name and Technowiz is just staring wide-eyed.  Questions: Do you remember your name?  Can you tell me what you were doing?  Date of Birth?  How do you feel?

I've a bump on my head the size that you usually see on Japanese anime characters.  There is a dent in the side of the stainless steel kitchen trashcan.  My shoulder feels funny.  Someone take my "average" blood pressure, "80".  What ever that means.  I'm loaded into the back of an Ambulance.  An IV drip of saline is started, and my blood pressure is taken again (83/30?!?  Not sure I heard that right.)  I'm lightheaded but quite aware of the ride.   Damn, this is going to cost a lot and I don't even get sirens and lights.

At the hospital,  They take more blood samples, as if I'm not already down a unit.  I get covered with sticker and patches to be hooked up to several machine.  I look like a bad Christmas tree.  The nurse Larry takes my pressure again lying down, sitting and standing.  he writes the numbers down next to three amusing cartoon stick figures, each of the figures in a different position.  I'm wheeled off for a Cat Scan and a Chest X-ray.  Thoughts running through my head:  Brain Tumor, or Mold from Sleeping in the basement, I've picked up some weird STD, or I had a heart attack.

Both the CT room and X-ray are cold.  First CT the tech tries to d fails because the CT machine overheats.  I keep expecting to hear the Ker-Chunk, Ker-Chunk sound like on TV but it never comes.  Then I think of all those Radiological techs I've had in my classes over the years.  This doesn't seem like a bad job.  I get moved to the X-ray room for some chest shots.  As time passes I feel better but tired and hungry.  I back to the examination room.

(ASIDE:  Being short and fat sucks.  You are never the right size for anything.  The Dressing gown keeps sliding off.  I'm just wide enough that it doesn't close behind me and the larger size would be to long.  Good thing I'm still in Shorts and a T-shirt.)

After thirty or forty minutes of my family members staring at me:  Technowiz is quiet.  Technowitch looks as if any moment tears will burst from her eyes, The High Priestess look full of worry and Technotaz look more worried for his Mother than for me.  I just feel old and stupid.  The Doctor comes in.

Now I really feel old.  The Doctor looks to be about early thrites, not Doogie Houwser, but definately not House either.  All the test come back normal.  Which mean they could not find anything obvious.  Which is great news, but now I am going to see a huge hospital and EMS bill.  CRAP!  I was saving this summer for a new ultrabook.  Doctor says I just fainted.

Great, I'm a pussy.  I spend five minute peeling tape and pads.  Pulling out hair from all over my body.  I'm leaving DNA all over the place.  Instead of paying back some Karma I've a got a more stuff to deal with for the month of July.  I wonder how much my free Donor t-shirt is going to cost after everything is all said and done.

Life By the Number 2nd Qtr 2013
Wt: 265 lb  (Down from a high of 280 lb, but not as low as the 250 lbs I once was.)

BP:  138/90 -  That 90 needs to come down. Less caffeine and more exercise.

Heart Rate:  72 bpm -  More exercise since I have had this down to 60 bpm

A1c:  7.2%  This is not great but it beats the hell out of 7.7% and 7.6%

The 7.6 % was my own damn fault.  Not enough exercise since my swimming routine was thrown into Chaos due to a new blow hole in the back of my neck.  Plus donuts for breakfast are no way in hell a good idea. 

So I've spent the last 3 months working on the A1c.  I've cut out all artificial sweeteners, any diet with word diet.  So all my diet pop is now unsweetened ice tea.  I can live without the sugar but I need the caffeine.  It is amazing the change in my taste buds now that all the crap is gone.  Now that my body is not seeing all that fake sugar, everything tastes so much sweeter.  Fresh fruit, milk, bread, and raisins taste great.

I've been using my stepper 5 days a week and that has been helping as well.  I have lost weight and my buns are like steel.  Or course now it looks like I have a beer gut.  Curse you! uneven weight lose!

If it's Saturday, it must be St. Paul.

I've finally got back to the twin cities, after finding half the world has moved here. The exception is my brother who just left a couple of years back. So on to the ramble.

The Drive was better than I thought, since I thought I would fall asleep behind the wheel after 2 hours to anywhere. However, I've found out some very nasty things.

One, it is possible to overdose on Sorbitol. One if my routines when driving is chewing Orbit Bubblemint and downing Eclipse Winterfrost mints like there is no tomorrow. Both have Sorbitol a sugar alcohol substitute. One of the reason I do this is to keep my mouth happy, thus causing me to stay awake and not run into the minivan filled with Nuns and orphan kids. (There's an express ticket to hell.) Since I'm diabetic I try to avoid sugar when I can, hence the need for the Sorbitol. However, soon after arriving in the Twin Cities part of my body feel like they have gone to another country and started drinking the pond water. The Odd thing is this happen the week before, and the week before that. Almost like clockwork.

Last time, this happen was in College when I would get a headache at 2 PM every Sunday and would clear up by dinnertime. Turns out that my body was going through Caffeine withdrawal. Hmmmmmmmm.....

Let's run it down. Two weeks, I drove to Des Monies for a conferences, then last week the HP and I took the kids to Adventureland. Both road trip with my usual routine, and a couple of days afterwards of me finishing off my supply of Eclipse mints. All followed by spending more time in the bathroom than a ten dollar hooker on payday. A little research and you guess it: Sorbitol! One more thing to scratch off the list. Other side effects: Gas. (Yeah, like I need that!), High Blood Sugar readings (Oh Shit, why don't you just say my head could explode.)
Truth to be told, the blood sugar reading are a result of my biochemistry and the sorbitol working together in interesting ways. Which leads me to my next point.

300 mg/dL! You gotta be Shitting Me! I admitt I have not been as diligent about watch what I eat, but I haven't had a donut in weeks and only one funnel cake in the past week. Some of this maybe the Sorbitol, but I hope it's not my pancreas giving up the ghost. I though I had this under control, before my lancet device failed. Which brings me to my next point. I'm sure all of you have seen those diabetic ads for all kinds of stuff. (Aside: I'm always tickled by the TV shows that have diabetic and ED ads in the same break time. Makes me think of old fat guys in wheelchairs with boners.) One of the ads is for the OneTouch Ultra Mini.

Sure, it's cute and small, but it's a pain in the ass. The unit is sold as being hip, small and convenient. I picked up one of these units for free at the local Hy-Vee store from the local rep pitching the product to the pharmacy customers. What they don't tell you is you have to dragging all the other crap with you: test strips, lancets, lancet device, and the case to carry it all. The picture makes it seem the unit carries the strips, HA! You load one test strip for each time you test. My old Accu-check Compact has all the test strips loaded into a drum so it's one less thing to carry. It's about three times the volume, but the case size for all the accessories is only 50% larger than the OneTouch. So I'm sticking with the Accu-check