I was at a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and the first thing she said as she came in and got settled in front of my records on her computer was, “How’ve you been doing?” This is such a common small talk question I feel like my normal response is an automatic affirmation of some kind, the verbal equivalent of a quick thumbs up. “Good!” “Fine!” You know. But this time I just sort of sat there in the chair and looked at her until she looked back at me and I was like, “Myyehhhhhhh” with my hand flipping back and forth and she was like, “MmmHmmmm” with her cheeks kind of tucked and her eyebrows raised, and it was somehow a WHOLE ASS CONVERSATION, probably one of the more authentic ones I’ve had lately.

I had been a little worried going into this appointment because there were a couple of things flagged in the results of the lab work I’d had done ahead of time. My cholesterol was high, as well as my LDL cholesterol; HDL cholesterol normal. So of course I was all in an ill-informed tizzy because I can never remember which cholesterol is the good one and which is the bad, and oh no are my abysmal dietary choices finally transforming my arteries into a golden spongelike substance with a delicious yet deadly creamy filling?

When she got to that report of the report, though, she asked if I’d been fasting before the draw and when I said no (because no one told me I needed to, dammit) she was like, “Oh well then pssshhh, they’re not accurate, and I’m not worried about it.”

“Great!” I said, and then pointedly asked if it was maybe important to go ahead and check in on those numbers with a proper test, but only inside my head because that is exactly the kind of medical patient I often am: HUGELY AND WEIRDLY SUBSERVIENT.

Anyway, I’m probably not actively dying, which is good, because I’d like to stick around and see things getting better, which they will, because they always do if given enough time.

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Erin
Erin
2 years ago

This is the trick my doctor told me to remember which is the good cholesterol and which is the bad: LDL = little devils that you want to be low, and HDL = heavenly that you want to be high.

Lee
Lee
2 years ago

I’m going back to my doc in July after 6 months of taking a statin for high cholesterol. (I did have two labs, 6 months apart, to confirm it wasn’t a fluke.) I hope the statin has helped. It runs in my family. :/

Mary Clare
Mary Clare
2 years ago

Middle age is awesome! Menopause, needing reading glasses, repeat mammograms to rule out issues, and cholesterol meds! (Not saying you have these problems, but taking a moment to whine. I’m newly 45 and the body decay seems very apparent lately. Yay!).

Mary
Mary
2 years ago

I just remember the H should be High and the L should be Low. But you’re probably not dying either way.

trackback
2 years ago

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All & Sundry

Shawna
Shawna
2 years ago

@Mary Clare, I’m going to be 49 this year and can see routine colonoscopies looming on the horizon. I’ve already noticed middle-aged waist thickening – my shorts from even a few years ago don’t fit comfortably around my waist, even though I weigh less than I did when I bought them and found them comfortable. My metabolism has slowed to the point that eating over 1700 calories routinely causes me to gain weight. And my skin didn’t just tighten up when I lost 35 lbs last year – hello wattle! Also, I’m not yet used to carrying reading glasses and find myself sometimes being unable to easily read ingredients at the grocery store. And I’m afraid that there’s nowhere to go but downhill from here.

Belle
Belle
2 years ago

Up until the age of 50 or so, I had no prescribed meds. Then year after year, I seemed to add at least one more. Now when I go to the dr’s office I am greeted with a printout of a damn whole page of them. I have a morning pillbox and an evening pillbox. But, at 71, when I have friends around me dying left and right, I will happily swallow those pills.