I know why bank balances change.
I know how people get drunk.
I know why my blood work came back crappy.
It appears I have once again been hanging out in fantasy land with my pal, the stork. I am my parent’s child. People used to always say I looked like my Mom when I was young. I have her light skin and eyes, but when it gets down to it, I am my Dad’s daughter. The bond between a Daddy and his little girl can be strong. Mine is genetic. I got from my Dad massive upper body strength, a solid bone structure, hair on my big toes and an almost inhuman ability to produce cholesterol. You wouldn’t believe the numbers I can post! I’ve got so much skill, I should be ranked.
My first cholesterol screen was in my mid twenties. I was super fit with just 19% body fat and I ate mainly along the lines of the American Heart association. The follow up doc took one look at me, told me that the numbers could be off by as much as 25% on any given day and I should “watch myself”. Okay. Well, it appears I am just as good at denial as I am with math. I took my numbers, calculated the 25% margin of error. Applied it in my favor and lo and behold, I was in the acceptable range, or pretty close. Case closed. The test sucked. Clearly it was off by 25%. Obviously the 25% was in my favor. I am fine. Nothing to see here. Pass the cheeseburgers.
The second test went similarly. I was pregnant – that can affect the numbers. I’m fine. Deny. Deny. Deny.
The third test brought some big money numbers! Holy Toledo. I thought I was just really good at making cholesterol – no, I am a freaking savant! The nurse called three hours after I left, and when she couldn’t get ahold of me, she called Husband’s work and told them I had “a medical emergency”. Really? I had a crappy cholesterol screen. I wasn’t in intensive care after a disfiguring pole dancing accident. Who calls a person’s spouse at work and leaves that sort of message? What? Was getting this information to me in two less hours going to save me from eating that lethal cannoli? I can only dream about what had to be going through that nurse’s head when she placed that call, “dear God people, this girl will have a triple bypass by morning unless I can locate her right now by any means possible. Here is the scent of the blood we drew this morning – send out the hounds! By the looks of things, you should start at Popeye’s, set up a perimeter at Burger King, and for the love of all things precious, hide your bacon!”
Okay, maybe I am a bit hard on the lady. She only wanted to pass on the news. At the rate I was going, I would likely have a heart attack in a decade or two. Clearly reason to send Husband’s office into a tizzy trying to track him down, no? I don’t want to have a heart attack. That would way cut into my “being lazy” time. I know they take good care of you in the hospital, but I prefer five star hotels and frankly they’re cheaper. Not only that, have you seen the scars a bypass leaves? I would need a turtleneck bikini!
The doc wanted to put me on meds straight away. I’m no Seventh Day Adventist, but I hate taking meds. You know all that mumbo jumbo the announcer jams in at the end of a commercial? That’s a script for how my body will be affected. Besides collecting side effects like state quarters, I’m sort of forgetful. What were we talking about?
I’m literate. Using this highly underrated super skill, I went to the book store and bought a “how to fix yourself” manual. It had lots of super good info about nutrition in it. Who knew! Even with all the good info, it didn’t connect the dots. So, armed with a ten spot and my reading super power, off I went again. The next book had one little paragraph hidden in it that said roughly, “a genetic propensity to high cholesterol may be nothing more than a genetic propensity to not process animal protein properly” or some such thing. This was my moment of zen. My Dad and his Dad had wicked high “genetic” cholesterol with the bypass scars thrown in for good measure. Shazzam! (Total super hero word) If I know what the problem is, maybe I can fix it on my own! Another ten spot. Another book. A plan started forming. Corny, but I felt empowered. Like I had way more control over my well being than I ever imagined.
I had watched my Dad go through every cholesterol med on the market. Heard the results of liver function tests following each change. I was honestly as afraid of the drugs as I was of the knife.
My doc went right for his pharmaceutical arsenal with me. He reviewed my food journal and didn’t even offer the option of food therapy. It looked to him like I was following the rules. He listened patiently as I blathered on about “genetics” and “meat” and “petrifying fear of daily medications” and he gave me three months. He set the guidelines. “We draw again in three months. I need to see a 10% drop or we will need to medicate you.” I work well with deadlines and fear may cause some to clam up, but fear is my homey. We get on well. Without fear walking beside me holding my hand, I’m way more likely to keep on keeping on than make a change.
Change I did. My reading told me cholesterol comes from high cholesterol foods, but also from saturated fat. Okay high cholesterol foods – you’re out. Saturated fat, the tribe has spoken. And for good measure, animal products – all you over there - you’re fired! Just like that I was a vegan - a curse word where I come from. The best part of this medicating with munchies was the side effects. My pants fell off after just one month. By the end of month two I had dropped to a size zero. My skin was glowing and I felt strong. Scared, but strong. At the end of three months, I knew my body had done some serious changing. Absolute terror still kept me from calling the doc and ordering the follow up test. At three and a half months my doc cornered me in our grocery store and told me it was time. I delayed an additional two weeks because that’s what grown-ups do. What? No? Whatever. After the blood was drawn I waited and waited for the results to come back. It had taken over-anxious-nurse three hours to call after the last test. One day passed. Then another. When I could take it no longer, I called in for my results. The nurse was baffled as to why they ran my blood again. “Everything’s normal here”. Clearly she has never met me. The doc got on the line and was completely blown away. Of course, this day I let the knowledge of the 25% variance in test results slide. I had dropped my Cholesterol 110 points in three, no four months! I had gone from a “medical emergency” phone call to an “everything’s normal” phone call. The doc and I met again and I told him about the book I was following, Dr. Joel Furman’s Eat to Live. He asked if it would be okay to share my story with others. I was flying. I wrote a thank you note to Doc Furman. He responded asking to use my story as a testimonial to his plan. How cool.
The fear had passed.
Then one day I found myself standing at the refrigerator door looking at a left over hotdog from the grill. I ate it like a caveman! I hadn’t even swallowed the last bite before the guilt set in. I couldn’t even own up to my heinous misstep. I carried the hot dog guilt for two week before I admitted to Husband this grievous error. He laughed in my face. “You messed up. So what? Today’s a new day and stressing yourself out over a hotdog isn’t going to make you healthy”. You’re right. It isn’t.
More than four years have passed since I got serious about eating myself healthy. I have made concessions along the way and I try to eat most of my meals vegetarian, but it just doesn’t work so well here in Italy. The bread is packed with lard. The pasta stuffed with cheese. It is sooooooo good, and so bad for me. When I am in country, I hang on to an extra eight pounds (the Italy Eight as I affectionately call those cute little bastards) and the cholesterol that goes with it. A week in America and the weight vanishes…and the cholesterol that goes with it.
Here I sit with last week’s blood work in hand. I am up again. A little too much Italy, a few too many concessions I guess. The good news is, I know how to fix it. The bad news, we have to attend family dietary counseling because in addition to the light skin and eyes I passed to my children via my Mom, I also passed them my Dad’s hairy big toes and cholesterol issues. I’m not cuddled up with the stork any more. I’m not doing fancy Enron accounting to make the numbers pretty any longer. I deny denial. It’s a setback, but so what? Stressing about it won’t make us any healthier. Six months till a redraw. Go!
So what’s on my i-pod today? The Hives - Try it Again. Because you get up, you get down and you try again.
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