Or, to quote Mr. Mackey, “you’re pretty messed up, mmmkay?”
I’ll tackle both prompts again, today, because one I only have a couple of things to say.
1. What steps do you take for your health? Do you exercise? Eat healthy? Or do you figure you only live once and the heck with worrying about it?
A few years ago, when I was planning to ask my fiancee to marry me, I decided I needed to get more serious about taking care of myself. So, what’d that entail?
1. Harmful recreational chemicals,
2. Bad diet
3. Doing things to, “feel better.”
I was doing pretty well with all of it until the Nor’easter three years ago. Fall 2008, I’d gotten a new glasses prescription. The optometrist couldn’t correct me to 20/20 in my left eye. That wasn’t totally surprising after I’d had a problem with it about a year and a half before.
In November 2009, my apartment was destroyed in the storm. I’d spent much of that year working time-and-a-half helping with a big project, and trying to finish another.
After management finally got around to repairing my place, I just couldn’t get the strength and motivation to get things rearranged properly. And my eyes were crazy. Optometrists and psephologists had no idea what was causing my “optic nerve pallor.”
Fast forward six months, I’m dealing with the medical nonsense related to the MS diagnosis. Some of the progress I’d made on general health stuff I set aside just to deal with feeling lousy all the time.
I started seeing a resident at the local medical school who worked with me on a few things, some more successfully than others. I lost a lot of weight. (I went from bumping close to 250 down to around 185.) The medication I’m on now doesn’t kill my appetite as much as the first one did.
Even after switching my injections to the mornings, I still didn’t want to eat much of anything for several hours after taking the medicine.
My dad died in December 2010. I probably drank too much in the year or so after. Not so much because I was sad, but because I like alcohol.
The resident had said a couple of beers probably wasn’t a bad thing, with the weight loss continuing. She also put me on diet shakes to try and keep weight on. Before we actually got married, I was going downtown for sushi and beer probably every five days or so (expensive!).
After we got married, I was eating at home. And drinking more. Moreso after I stopped driving at night. Not to the point of being drunk, but beyond the point where I felt like I could drive if I absolutely needed to, but….
Fast-forward to this year. I started this new medication in February. Increased liver enzymes are an uncommon, but not rare, side-effect. After twelve weeks on the drug, blood test. My enzymes were high. Could have been the alcohol or the drug. Maybe both; I don’t know that there’s a way to know for sure. Week sans booze, and my liver was “normal” again.
Since the forced-sobriety period, I’ve started drinking again. A lot less than I was, and ever on nights I give myself a shot. On nights when I do drink, I try and watch my intake better. Pfft.
The weight loss stopped, too. I’ve been within about a ten pound range for almost two years now. I’m okay with what I weigh right now. Would I like to be fitter? Absolutely.
But I can’t run anymore. At all. Not even ten yards. Walking more than a couple of blocks nearly lays me out.
The last time I went to the med school to see a doc, the woman I’d been seeing had moved on to greener pastures. I saw someone different. She gave me three vaccines, and put me on blood pressure medication. My blood pressure has always been slightly elevated. Too many stimulants probably didn’t help. The Air Force made me do five remedials on it. When I saw the new doc, my BP was almost exactly what it’d been when I was seventeen years old (and that hte Air Force was finally okay with after taking it whatever it was…fifteen times?)
She also wanted blood. Still being bad about getting leeched, I delayed that until the neurologist visit. Neuro faxed the results over. My cholesterol wasn’t great. “Borderline high.” My HDL was low, and my LDL was a bit high. Combined was fine.
I’m going to go see someone else next week. I guess we’ll see what this new one has to say. Not doctor-shopping. Same practice. But the one who put me on the BP med seems to be overloaded. Whatever. I’m fine being a guinea pig. If there’s a resident who can learn from me, great.
2. Have you ever been hypnotized or seen someone hypnotized? What happened? If you haven’t, would you allow yourself to be if the chance presented itself?
Um. I’m not allowed to be hypnotized. Yes, I’ve seen what it looks like. (college, maybe?)
At a station where I used to work, there was a hypnosis group who’d come do a radio show periodically. They were, ummm, interesting. Brother and sister who, I think, had taken over their dad’s practice. Brother would bring his wife in. Sister was freakishly high-energy. I think she’d been a Marine, if that says anything…….
The brother had a very intense stare. And worked virtually expressionlessly. His was wife was pretty, more human, but also seemed a bit off……
I’ve S’dTFW a couple of times to see what happened to them, since I hadn’t heard them in awhile. Looks like the company failed under shomewhat mysterious circumstances or something. Regardless, they moved out west, etc.
And I’m going to shut up there.