Today I went to the doctor to discuss the bunch o’ blood work I had done. I knew there wasn’t going to be catastrophic news because they obligingly call you to come in if the lab returns results stamped with something like PATIENT HAS THREE DAYS TO LIVE.
I made the trek to Richmond via the still sexy Expo Line and the decidedly unsexy Canada Line. There’s not much you can do to dress up a subway. It’s even more annoying in that most of it is cut and cover so it meanders all over the place to follow the road above it.
As is usually the case I arrived at the office early and had to wait awhile before the doctor came in. I like my doctor. He’s friendly and smart. He’s also older than me so when he gives the ‘men of your age’ speech it’s always somewhat ruefully.
The overall news was good — no hideous diseases or deficiencies that would require hospitalization/surgery/medication/alien intervention. The scare that came out of an April 2008 visit to a walk-in clinic (‘You’re one year away from Type II diabetes”) is gone with my much more sensible diet. My combined bad/good cholesterol number is fine and I don’t appear to be deficient in anything else, blood-wise.
One of two areas of concern was my bad cholesterol level — it is a bit higher than what would be considered optimal. The doctor figures this is likely a genetic predisposition and is nothing to be concerned about. He gave me a number to call for a free consultation with a government dietician if I’m concerned I may be eating wrong and horrible things. The other concern was regarding how efficiently my kidney is flushing out the things it’s supposed to — the jargon got a bit technical for me. Basically he said that as you age the efficiency decreases by about 1 per year and while my current level is fine, in 40 years it would be at a critical level. I’d also be 87 then, so it’s quite possible I wouldn’t give a flying fig about it, either. The advice here was to take kidney-friendly medication when needed and to monitor it year by year.
And that was about it. I’m scheduled for a full physical next month so we’ll find out if I have nutty blood pressure and whatnot. I’m hoping for perfectly boring results because my health is one part of my life I prefer to be dull.
