Where You Started-->Where You are Going

So, I’ve been losing weight. I haven’t blogged about it simply because I don’t like to advertise that I am/was fat. For the last six years, I’ve felt like I hid it pretty well, all tagged photos to the contrary. I’m only bringing it up now because I had a “lipid appointment” with the heart and vascular doctor on Friday. They took a finger-prick sample of blood from my very sleepy, fasting body at approximately 7:30 in the morning.

Let me back up. On December 26^th, 2012, I went in to my annual lady doctor and had a full physical. I’ve been told for years that I have high cholesterol, and since my pregnancy back in 2006, I’ve had high blood-sugar too. The doctor I saw was very “concerned” that I was 210 pounds with a cholesterol level of 299 and a blood-sugar level of 100 while fasting. She pretty much told me that I was pre-diabetic and would probably suffer a heart attack shortly after losing a foot and die before I ever turned 60. Diet and exercise, she told me, would be the only way to avert impending doom.

Since that day I’ve been dieting. I’ve been exercising more, but still not as much as I should. In February, I did as my lady doctor suggested and saw a doctor in family practice about my cholesterol. We took new fasting samples, and weighing in at 185, she recommended I continue to diet and exercise and make an appointment with the heart and vascular specialist, which is what I did on Friday.

At the Friday morning finger-prick session… The nurse gets all my notes about what I’m eating and how often I’m exercising and all this good stuff, and then she moves me to another room to meet with the doctor. The doctor comes in, pulls up all the information that the nurse just entered and tells me everything I already know about my problem. 1) I have a problem. 2) Genetically predisposed to cardiovascular issues.  3) Smoking is not good for you. 4) These are good things to eat. 5) These are bad things to eat. 6) Exercise will help. 7) You need to lose a few pounds. I stop her. I tell her I’ve lost 40 so far, and that the only reason my diet looks as awesome on her computer as it does is because I’ve changed it since December. At this point she finally looks at my previous two visits.

I understand that no one has time to go through every bit of medical history that may be on file for a patient, but wouldn’t you look at the notes from the referring physician? Every other time I go to the doctor they weigh me, compare my current weight to my previous weight, and tell me if there’s a change (good, bad, or ugly). Maybe it was because it was 7:30 in the morning that this doctor didn’t take the time. I wonder, now, how long she would have droned on and on about lifestyle changes if I hadn’t interrupted her. She had already been talking for at least 20 minutes before I told her. Then after I did she scrolled through the notes and told me I was doing great. I’ve lost 40 pounds since December. I now weigh in at 170. My cholesterol is down to 229, my blood-sugar is still high (actually higher 111). She advised me to up my exercise to thirty minutes a day, five days a week. She recommended flax seed and told me to schedule another visit three months out.

I guess the moral of this story is that good and bad are entirely dependent on where you started and where you are going.