The doctor's visit

 Well, yesterday was an interesting morning. My doctor's appointment was for 9:15am. It is located inside Fashion Square, a mall I have never been to, so that was interesting. Luckily, after circling the block once I found a good parking spot not too far away. I go into the mall and the office is right there, yay. But there is no receptionist or anyone in the front of the office. I open the door and see a screen to the left with my initials on it. I head over that way and just then someone walks out from the back. Asks if I am Florence and then tells me how to sign in on the screen. Then we walk to the other side of the front area and there is a body scan machine. I stand on this and it takes my temperature and weight. Then I stick my fingers into a slot and it is supposed to take my heartrate and blood pressure, that didn't work. Then I'm taken back to the room. This room has a super soft, comfy chair for us to sit in and on the walk facing the chair is a giant screen. And by giant I mean giant, it must have been 4 feet across and about 2 or 3 feet tall. It was huge. There was nothing that looked like a doctor's office. Everything was sleek and modern and glass. It was nice. They take my pulse, blood pressure, and draw some blood for some tests. Then the doctor comes in after a few minutes and signs on to the giant screen. She tells me that this is being transcribed in real time by a live person as we speak. That way nothing is missed and she doesn't have to remember everything for later. 

We then begin an hour long visit that goes through all of my medical history and my family's medical history. Next we move on to all the various systems of my body. She asks about everything; my sleep patterns, my sex life, when I went through menopause, if I'm incontinent, everything. Based on my family history we are going to do genetic testing and that I'm really excited about. Then the blood work comes back - it takes about 15 minutes - and that is where the visit went downhill. 

My cholesterol is on the high side. My LDL and my VLDL are what is high. My HDL is pretty good but not good enough to counter the LDL and VLDL. So that needs to be fixed. 

My fasting glucose is 108, that is in the pre-diabetic range. That is really not good, especially with my family history of diabetes. That has to change. 

My blood pressure was on the high side initially, but better when they took it again at the end of the visit. I have to buy a cuff and monitor it at home every day. 

My liver enzymes are high, ALT and AST. This generally happens when your liver is inflamed and basically the cells are leaking. My liver is still working well, it is just inflamed and we need to get those numbers down. 

And as we all know, my weight is up. I was 226 when I went there yesterday. That is the highest I have been in quite a while. 

The good news is that almost all of these are related to diet and weight so therefore reversible. I have an appointment with their diet doctor on March 18th, but I'm not waiting until then. I'm starting now. Hubby went to the doctor the other day and his blood pressure was up. They told him he needed to monitor it and lose some weight, so he should be doing this too. But the truth is, whether he does it or not, I am. I do not want to spend my old age taking pills and going to doctors. I don't. So we stop it now. 

Okay, that brings us up to date and the health and wellbeing of me.