The week behind, the week ahead.

I’ve been a bit lax lately about updating this journal with “what’s going on with Rob” stuff of late. This is partly because of late, life hasn’t been all *that* interesting, and in part because other stresses keeping me from really wrapping my mind around writing here. But, since part of the point of this journal is to keep folks updated with what’s going on with me, I’m going to try and do a bit better.

I’ve been thinking a lot more about my own health lately, and realized that the last time I’d had a complete physical examination done was just before I went off to college in 1988. To tell the truth, I’ve been generally healthy to this point, aside from a long-standing sinus condition, and haven’t often felt a need to go see a doctor on general principles. On the other hand, its better to catch things before they turn into long-standing health issues, and I just turned 35 so its time to start keeping better care of myself.

So bright and early Monday morning, I went into my doctor’s office for my scheduled appointment…and discovered that I’d misremembered the appointment time by a half-hour. Oops. I was initially going to need to reschedule, but one of the Nurse Practitioners had an opening in 15 minutes, and did I mind seeing her instead. I’ve generally found that NPs are perfectly capable of dealing with my routine medical needs, and so I said “Sure, no problem.”

After going back to the exam room and getting the vitals and blood drawn, I got undressed and put on the absolutely ridiculous paper gown. Honestly, if it’s for MY modesty, I’d just as soon do without. About the time I got dressed, the nurse who took my vitals popped in to inform me that they had a student working in the office today, and would I object if she did the exam instead, under the NP’s supervision. I didn’t, and a few minutes later I was treated to an extremely cute young lady who introduced herself as my examiner. I win. I don’t know how, but I do.

So I got poked and prodded and swabbed and we discussed my eating and exercise habits (historically bad, working on making better), and all that fun stuff. The only immediately negative thing that came out of the visit was a warning that my blood pressure was high, and instructions to monitor it for 30 days and to come back in if it stayed at that level.

Wednesday, I got the lab work back. High cholesterol (not a surprise) and slightly elevated levels of something in my liver, for which I was told to abstain from Tylenol and alcohol for 30 days and then come into be retested. All the other bloodwork and tests came back negative, so while not a perfectly clean bill of health, at least only a few negatives to focus on.

Sometime midweek, tarkrai posted to the local filk list that he had an evening free on Saturday and did anyone want to come over and hang out and make some music? We certainly couldn’t pass up that, so we set off for his place with guitar and songbooks and an Impossible Pie and a box of grapes to contribute to the potluck. It was a small gathering, but tarkrai has a small apartment, so that’s OK. curiousmay9 was there when we arrived, and later Myra showed up with her daughter’s friend Harry. Eventually, thatcrazycajun and singing_phoenix arrived. There was a lot of talk (relationship geeking, class and race theory, the multi-generational effects of starvation on a population…say what you want about fans, but they don’t make boring conversation *grin*), and a lot of food (including steak for the main course and good fresh watermelon for dessert), and eventually we settled down to make some music. All in all, a fantastic way to spend a Saturday night, we went home full and happy.

Sunday was a lazy day, though we did manage to get to the gym to make up for my not going on Friday. I spent a few minutes warming up on the stationary bike, and then took advantage of the fact that on a Sunday afternoon the basketball court was deserted, and played about half an hour of a game of my own devising, which involves making as many baskets as you can in the span of 10 missed shots. The key to this for exercise is that if you miss, you have to recover the ball, and then make your next shot from wherever you regained control of it, and you have to rotate your starting shots (the ones you make after hitting a basket) from a set of rotating points, so you can’t just find your groove in one spot and stay there. A the end of 30 minutes of this, I was feeling the effects, and called it a successful day of exercise, and a lot less boring than the treadmill.

Today, I had my first appointment with an ENT to try and access what can be done about the last of my sinus problems. I had given up in frustration after being shuttled around after my surgery, when no one could quite figure out what was causing the last of my symptoms. This new doctor was recommended to me by one of my co-workers, and I figured it was about time to try and get a handle on this.

I had a nice discussion with him about where this came from, and what had been done to treat it. He examined the visible part of the nasal passages and remarked on what the surgeon had done, and said that that, at least, still looked successful. Nothing had closed back up after so much had been done to knock it all open. We discussed a variety of environmental issues that might or might not contribute, and I’ve been tasked with two courses of action for the next week:

1) I have a prescription for Zantac, which I’m to take twice a day. Although I don’t suffer from the obvious symptoms of acid reflux, some people apparently have what he called “invisible reflux”, which can cause the upper respiratory system to shift into high gear and create the congestion

2) I’ve been instructed to avoid dairy products for 2 weeks, to test if I have a milk allergy. This is actually hard for me, because while I *can* live without milk, cheese is a big part of my daily diet, and it’s going to be hard to avoid. But in the interests of better breathing, I’ll try anything.

I have a followup on 10/14 to see if we’ve made any progress.

Coming up this week:

• Lunch date with klrmn tomorrow.
• Followup to my GP to discuss my blood pressure, which remained so constant I asked them if they really wanted me to wait a month before coming back in. They said, “Can you come in tomorrow?”
• Dermatologist appointment on Wednesday to remove a small cyst
• Lunch date with kitanzi on Thursday
• Serenity opens on Friday. Woooo!

So, um, thanks for reading all that. How are you?