My yearly physical was last week.   I had to do the fasting blood test thing.  I mean really, how many gallons of blood do they need to find out if my cholesterol is too high.  I could have told them the answer before my body was completely drained of blood, Dracula-style.  Sort of like draining the oil from a car.   My blood test was a two hour procedure – didn’t realize that.   I got a couple People magazines read, talked with a member who was having blood work done and felt like a teenager compared to  the age of the crowd who were also having blood drained from their bodies. The second blood person (a trainee from who knows where)  I was glad to assist in her learning.  She couldn’t find a vein in the first or second arm, so she went back to the original source of blood in the first arm which gave her three quarts.  From that point on, four different staff persons took blood from there thus the poor vein on that side was weary the rest of the day; as a matter of fact I took the rest of the afternoon off and went home.

My body seems to do things weird. It took the nurse awhile to find my pulse.  At one point in my life a nurse could never find my pulse.   She finally learned to look for it by a certain hair on my wrist – how that stayed in the same position I’ll never know.   When she would tell me she couldn’t find it, it was a bit disconcerting to think I’d woken up dead and was walking around not knowing I had died.  Finally she  would find it, so I guess I hadn’t died yet.  

When I got to see the doctor a few days later after my blood was drawn he said, “Your cholesterol is out of the healthy range.”  Duh.   A blood draw was not necessary to know that.  Then, I realized that I had accidently stopped taking my medicine for cholesterol.  I had been thinking for awhile that something was strange in my medication regimen – and here it was  – guess I missed that refill.   Now I can start taking it again and I will be a new person – far be it from me to watch my eating and discipline myself to get back into the exercise mode I’d been doing.  It’s always too something or other to go walking today.    So, another year of trying not to fall off the health wagon.   Maybe this year, maybe today.   It’s hard isn’t it?  When one’s health is dependent on good care. Why is it so hard?  One of those questions I’ll have to ask God someday, but then again, I won’t care at that point, so I guess I’ll never know. 

Till next week.   h