I'm No Overnight Success

My desire to get me healthy is getting to be part desperate need, part ego at this point. I finally went to see my internist (I call him "Reality Doctor") today and after weeks of denial and avoidance, I had to face the health music.

I found myself just wanting to "the star" shining through with perfect scores in everything: weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, shiny white teeth.

My blood pressure has been going from moderately high to "oh-can-I-dig-the-hole-now?" high for several weeks now and I keep telling myself that it's getting better -- I just check it at the wrong times. Friday afternoon was apparently one of those wrong times. After the first reading of 160/104, I was given a few minutes to breathe deeply and relax. OH, WHAT PRESSURE TO PERFORM!

After my trip to deep breathing land it rose to 170/114. I assured Nurse Shannon that it was only "lab coat hypertension" and I was afraid of her boss, Reality Doctor. Reality Doctor is the coolest dude and when I grow up I want to be just like him, but I do feel the need to be GREAT every time I see him. He seems to lean toward the other weight loss surgery options and I really want to prove to him that the right patient (me) can make this lap band thing work. It's an ego thing.

I've lost 20 pounds since I saw him last and I don't think I'm a weight-loss failure, it just points to the fact, again, that this is no overnight or miracle cure. I was hoping that the rules of life didn't apply to me and I could be drug-free by five months.

I got a new crop of meds and I think it's darn time I stop thinking about that scale and get these numbers down. My blood sugar A1C (index of a long-time range of blood sugar level) has dropped almost an entire point and I'm happy to have that. I'm having some bad back and hip pain that may be siaticia or a recurring back problem. The doctor said since I've lost a lot of weight, there are changes in the way I carry my weight and that might be causing the pain. Hmm, how fair is that: I got back pain because I was too fat and I now got back pain because I'm losing weight?

Reality Doc doesn't make the rules, he just deals the cards and keeps me aware that this is a process. (By the way, the earlier blog entries identified Reality Doc as Eric Melancon -- I really should stop giving out new names, but it amuses me.) If you just read "Me-lan'-cone" you are, no doubt, not from Louisiana.

Mama calls my doctors "Boudreaux and Thibodaux," partially because I talk about them so much and also because they have solid Cajun names: Melancon and Leblanc. All jokes aside, they give South Louisiana medicine a good name.

So I have my marching orders and a new set of goals to squeeze in before we announce on Valentine's Day if I met the body fat challenge. I need to lower my blood pressure (take your medicine, stupid), lower my blood sugar (take our medicine, stupid) and work through the back pain (don't ask to borrow those meds, they are all mine!)

Oh, wow, I'm so proud of myself ... I didn't list "lose some more weight."