Health Update

Going to the doctor is a VERY GOOD THING. Not to be avoided! I'm on a new medicine and feel a LOT better, which just goes to show that the more freaked out you are about something, the more nothing it probably is.

Mr. Milkweed, on the other hand, went in to his doctor on Tuesday to get the results of some bloodwork and was raked over the coals. He's got high cholesterol, borderline high blood sugar, an irregular heartbeat, and was yelled at to lose twenty pounds. As his wife, it's the "irregular heartbeat" part that's wigging me out a little bit, and I'm all about the stress test he's got scheduled in a couple of weeks. However, there's not a lot I can do about that, so it's the cholesterol I'm trying to tackle.

Unfortunately, as former vegetarians who still prefer tofu to steak, there aren't a lot of red flags being raised in the diet area. Both of us have bad habits-- I eat WAYYYY too much sugar, for instance, and he eats too many salty snacks. There have also been rumors of a fish sticks and tater tots habit that may or may not be a weekly occurrence around here. And, since both of us kind of hate the idea of putting hydrogenated chemicals on our toast, we use real butter. We are not, however, swimming in lakes of it, and we don't even eat eggs all that often. What to do?

We're going to make the obvious diet changes, I guess, and add in some of those real triglyceride ass-kickers like omega-3s and oatmeal, and just hope for the best. Mr. M had been admittedly slack on the exercising front, which isn't hard to understand with two jobs, and I'll just pony up here and say that while I exercise five days a week, the bag of chocolate on the fridge isn't doing anything to help me kick the ten pounds I need to lose. As for the high blood sugar, well, I'm hoping we can stave off Wilford Brimley and his di-uh-BEE-tus testing supplies. That's thrown both of us for a loop, and we're hoping it'll just kind of go away if he loses some weight.

What the hell, though, people. Are we old around here, or are we OLD? Nobody tells you that when you hit the big 3-0, mortality comes a-knockin' and is more insistent than those nasty letters you used to get from BMG about fulfilling your CD-buying obligation, and doing it YESTERDAY.

Anyway. To add a little weight (ba-dum-TSSS!) to the diet changes, I'm giving up sweets for Lent, and Mr. M is giving up salty snacks. I just filled a freezer bag with my candy stash and will be dropping it off in the staff room at work, where it will disappear faster than a kitten in a room full of hyenas. With any luck, by Easter we'll both be a little healthier and a little skinnier. Oh, and be making plans to move! Three more weeks until we know something about the job...keep your fingers crossed.