Feeling Healthy
During our recent trip, I got mildly felled by a stomach bug and knocked it out with a dose of Azithromycin that Kim had with her for that exact purpose. It was a three-day course of a very powerful antibiotic and it did the trick such that I literally only sat out one dinner and was otherwise fine both sitting for all the meals, but also going out to whatever tours we had planned. Two of our group (Faraj and Melisa) came down with some sniffles that had them at less than full-strength, and Yasuko lost an entire day of touring Hanoi due to a serious stomach bug. Now that we are back, both Mike and Melisa are down with some sort of respiratory bug they got on the trip and they had to spend three ours in urgent care yesterday to get the appropriate medicine to knock it out of their systems. That means Kim is technically the only one of us who had no ailments (other than her usual bout with morning migraine or her post-prandial stomach cramping due to her stomach bypass).
It so happens that I had my semiannual doctor’s check-up scheduled for this week. In what has become normal fashion, my doctor’s office visit lasted all of 15 minutes. That office is nothing if not efficient. I go in, get weighed, get my blood pressure taken, spend some time with my Vietnamese doctor, who listens to my breathing through my back and chest, and then squeezes my ankles to see how my edema is doing (she always says it’s not so bad today), and then she tells me she wants to draw blood. But the office no longer draws blood, so I have to go to another place to have that done. I know exactly what vein is best to tap, so that takes only a moment and I am told to watch my online medical portal for the results later that day. When the test results come over the system, I get a text to check the portal, and I look up the results. It varies from time to time depending on exactly what blood tests she has ordered, but this time I have results from a Glycosylated HGB (A1C) test, a Lipid (Cholesterol Fraction) Panel, and a Comprehensive Metabolic Panel. The A1C is perfect at 5.4% (normal is 4.8 – 5.8). The Lipid Panel shows total Cholesterol of 154 (well below the 200 threshold), LDL of 95, non-HDL of 119, HDL of 42 and Triglycerides of 120 mg/dl, sight where it should be. As for the Comprehensive Metabolic Panel, Glucose is 98, BUN is 13, Creatinine is 0.94, Sodium is 142, Potassium is 3.8, Chloride is 107, Bicarbonate is 28, Anion Gap is 7, Calcium is 8.7, Total Protein is 6.5, Albumin is 3.7, Bilirubin is 0.52, AST is 22, ALT is 25, and Alkaline Phos is 63. I have no idea what that all means, but every one of those numbers are right in the middle of the green mid-zone on the line chart underneath, so I have to assume I’m all good.
I am 70 years old and have rarely, if ever, done anything that is good for me from a health standpoint. My statistical good health is the result of whatever genetic good fortune I have inherited, presumably from my mother who lived a good 100 years with little or no illness. I have spent my life much heavier than is good for me (or anyone). I have done many active things ranging from skiing to scuba diving to motorcycling and have never broken a bone or had any serious stitches. My one brush will bad health was 35 years ago when I had my gall bladder removed, but other than that, any hospital visits I have had have been voluntary, like when I had a LapBand installed to slow me down in the eating department. I’ve traumatized my left knee twice, but neither time did I have surgery or even a laparoscopic inspection. I let nature heal me and rehabbed myself to the point of continued functionality. Kim has two artificial knees, Mike has an artificial hip and most people I know have had some such prophylactic assistance, but I have all my original issue equipment and its all holding up reasonably well.
Don’t get me wrong, I am far from ache and pain free, but my point is that I have somehow managed to get this far in life with very few problems and, indeed, few consequences. I am well aware that there are things I cannot do as well as I wish I could. I was reminded of that during my recent trip, where fatigue on certain days made me sit out some of the walking that the others in my group did to see some sights. I am spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about what I can do to spur myself into more rather than less activities, and to do that I have to achieve a higher level of fitness. So, I am planning on doing something I have rarely managed to sustainably do over the years, which is to commit to a regular exercise program. I got a start on that over the last six or seven months, but now its time to ratchet that up. I plan to start that on Monday, the day when we all start new resolutions, whether they are to eat less or exercise more. I have no illusions of turning myself into a performance athlete, but I did come back from Asia lighter than I was before and I want to not waste that start to the process.
Over the years, whenever I have felt myself being constrained at the margin by my fitness level, I have taken some sort of action to improve all that, at least at the margin. I think my Irish doctor in New York, who looked after me for many years said it best to me. He sat me down in what was effectively an exit interview as he fled New York for the West Coast about 6 months before I did. He said very directly, that we know enough about my physiology to know that I am unlikely to be felled by some disease like diabetes (probably because I am Hyperplastic in my fatness, rather than hypoplastic, and thus my fat cell membranes do not burst the way some people’s do). He explained that my lack of observable arterial plaque combined with my very reasonable lipid profile implies that I manage to process cholesterol reasonably well and it does not tend to build up to my detriment in any significant way. That means that he felt my chances of maintaining a reasonably healthy cardiovascular system was good. I have no family history of cancer, so there is no reason to believe that the big C will be finding its way into my system any time soon. But despite all that, what my Irish friend did tell me was that my size would eventually catch up with my otherwise battle hardened and quite robust joints and that they would eventually be less and less able to keep up.
In the last five years I have found great wisdom in his comments and I see that what he predicted for me has held up well. My lab numbers and general sense of well-being continue to keep me feeling healthy, but I am clearly moving less and less easily or quickly as my joints and muscles have had a harder and harder time handling my weight. The equation is pretty straightforward. I need to exercise more, stay more limber and, yes, try and weigh less. That may seem like an obvious revelation for most people, but I am like Donald Trump, I have led a charmed life without meaningful consequences. That has made me feel like I have been bulletproof when that is far from the truth. Donald Trump is not immune from anything, as I expect we will see more and more of that this year. And I am not immune from the natural forces of nature that slow people like me down and force me to become more accountable for my own health. I will admit that it is not easy to teach an old dog new tricks, but this old dog is not without some willingness to at least try to jump through the necessary hoops.