Grim News

Maybe I can’t hold off the Grim Reaper forever, but I don’t have to give him a hand. For those of you who aren’t into the self-examination of others, leave now.

I avoid doctors like the plague.  If I ain’t bleeding to death or in serious pain, I figure I’ll be alright with or without the doctor’s advice to rest and take whatever chemical brew that Big Pharma is paying them to push on unsuspecting patients this week.   That said, I have a cordial relationship with my doctor.  I bite the bullet and take a physical whenever my wife’s nagging gets to the point where I feel like shutting her up about the subject.  I know the following medical facts about myself.

I am 6’4 and weigh approximately 330 pounds.  This is considered “heavy” or “obese” by whatever chart was written 30 years ago as the official reference for such things.  These same experts say that I should weigh 185 pounds despite the fact that any physiologist who knows how to measure body fat will tell you that my lean body weight  is 230 pounds.

My bloodpressure is guaranteed to be close to 140/90, which isn’t awesome, but it’s nothing to worry about.

I can play 3 sets of competitive (ALTA, B-5) tennis in summer, and while I might be grumpy, I’ll survive the experience.

My liver function has been abnormal since I was a teenager.  Some enzymes are a little over the “high” mark, but I’ve had several ultrasounds and the diagnosis has always been “fatty liver”.

All in all, I am not exactly a Spartan, but I’m strong as an ox, and smell nearly as bad.

It all started with a simple blood test.  My wife and I were expecting our first child, and her doctor wanted me to get tested to make sure our (soon-to-be) daughter would be free from any genetic gotchas.

My doctor, knowing that I am an incorrigible smart-ass, goes through the usual routine…

“When are you coming in for a physical?”

Soon…

“You know you need to…”

Lose a few pounds, doc… Got it.

“Your liver…”

…function is a little abnormal, nothing to worry about.

You get the idea.

The Doc turns me over to his team of vampires who take a couple of gallons of blood and send them off to the lab.  A week later, I get a call to come to his office to pick up the forms to send to my wife’s doc. (Clever trap, doc… you could have faxed them yourself.)  While I’m there…

What’s up, Doc? (And yes, I really do start my conversations with him this way.  He rolls his eyes and groans like an appreciative audience.)

“How about Diabetes?”

*sound of a record needle scratching*

Well, fuck me running.  That’s a new one.  He says “I’d like to do a fasting glucose test on you to make sure, but your A1C number is way outta whack.“  Long story short, my blood sugar would have had Dracula bouncing off the walls like a 6-year-old with his first Mountain Dew.  The Doc pulls me in to his office for “The Big Sitdown”.

I get a prescription for Metformin.

I get told to lose weight… or else.

Now some of you, intellectually, may think you understand “or else”.  Let me go ahead and tell you that it has a whole new range of color and texture when you are the target of those words.

I went on Weight Watchers that very day.  I took my medicine and started putting together an exercise plan.  I was the very picture of motivation.

Oh, but “They” weren’t through motivating me yet.

I told a good friend of mine at the office about my predicament.  He grabbed my arm and marched me to his desk.  He pulled out a backpack and handed it to me.

“What’s this?”

“Open it…”

It was his “Diabetes Kit”.  All 11 prescriptions he had to take, his blood sugar measuring gear, and enough other stuff to completely fill the backpack.

“You want to take all this?  Then listen to your doc and do what he says.”

It did not escape my notice that one of the prescriptions was for Viagra.

“Oh yeah, one of the side effects of taking all these other drugs… Good thing I already have 3 kids.”

It was at that moment when I felt real fear for the first time.  Not “Oh lord, this is going to hurt…” fear.  This was the first time I ever felt “I’m going to die if I don’t handle this.”

Over the next 6 months, I dropped nearly 30 pounds. (I had weighed in at 348 when I got tested)  I was feeling better than I had felt in a long time.  I went back to the doc, and got the best news I could have imagined.

• No more drugs.
• “Pre-diabetic, managed with diet and exercise”  (It turns out that my family history indicates a tendency towards diabetes.  It ain’t ever going away completely.  That’s just cold hard genetics.)
• Keep dropping weight, and you’ll have a clean bill of health.

A little while later, my wife and I welcomed our daughter into the world, and my diet went pretty much straight to hell.  I gained 10-15 pounds back over the next 8-9 months, but I was exercising more.  I went back to the doc for my physical (because now I knew that it would be anything but routine from now on.)

• Blood Pressure 130/80
• A1C number still high, but just barely.
• Cholesterol numbers just slightly outside of normal.
• Liver and Kidney functions are normal. (!!! That’s a first…)

Oh but wait…

It seems that there was an irregularity in my EKG. (That’s “heart” for those of you who don’t sling medical lingo)  There was a possibility that there was a small blockage near my heart.

Here we go again.

So the doc signs me up for a stress test, and I go get the radioactive shot.  Long story short, it came up clean, but there was that reminder again.

“or else.”

The Doc, also noticing that the Metformin had helped with my weight loss, put me back on the medication, and added some blood pressure meds along with a cholesterol pill.  I believe that it is probably overkill considering the numbers, and said as much.

“Hey, if you’ll go ahead and lose the rest of that weight, we won’t have to worry about these pills anymore.”

I’d like to say that all of this has been enough motivation to get me to stick to a diet & exercise plan and drop the pounds, but there’s more…

But that is a post for a later date.  Suffice to say that I am ready to do something about this, and the first step is challenging myself by putting all this out there for others to see, and for me to go back and review from time to time.  I want to lose 75 pounds by the end of this year.   Maybe that goal is a little too ambitious, but even getting partway there would represent a victory of sorts.

• Goal:  255 pounds by the end of the year.
• Start Weight:  330 pounds. (Monday, 5/25/2009)
  
• Current Progress: 0 pounds.