No Rest for the Weary

If you haven't been keeping track, I passed my two year anniversary of my little medical 'vacation' at Good Samaritan Hospital the other week. 

Unlike the other times I hit an anniversary (or half-anniversary) of this little incident, I delayed my post about how things are going.

Why?

Well, let me explain. 

I went into my annual physical in mid-November feeling good about the direction I'd been trending. I'd finally broken through the plateau my weight had been at for a year and was trending downward, and my daily tests I run* haven't shown any weird spikes or other odd behaviors. Considering that with my physician's encouragement I'd slowly weaned myself off of insulin and was going with only the Metformin as the primary method of controlling my blood sugar, that's a good thing.**

The physical itself went pretty well, with my blood pressure being pretty much "normal" for someone being treated for my condition, and I passed my diabetic foot exam with flying colors. They took my blood for the standard battery of tests, and my doctor told me that I should go take some time off and go on vacation. 

"What do you mean when you say you're on-call 24x7?" he asked.

"Well," I replied, "it means that if there's a problem in the middle of the night and it's bad enough, they call me up and I have to go fix it." If you've been in IT, you know what I mean. It's part of the job.

"Can't you just leave it all at work and just turn your phone off at home?"

"Can you do that?" I countered.

"That's different."

No, I'm not tech support per se, but this
is one of my two positions I assume during
'emergency escalations'. The other involves
rubbing my temples. From imgur.

Sure, there's the difference where a life might be in the balance, but if you've ever worked a 24x7 on-call job before, you don't have that option. Luckily for me, my job has gotten better at the 'woken up at 3 AM' scenario, but that doesn't mean that my work doesn't follow me around or keep me busy in the evenings/weekends.

What about vacation? 

Well, I'm not a homebody per se, but I don't have a burning desire to go out and travel any more. I'm not a fan of crowds, so when we do visit someplace I'm just not interested in doing much.*** And when I take the day off and stay at home, I usually have to visit the doctor or work on a project around the house.

Yeah, the girl is me. From imgflip.

So all in all, outside of the needling by the doctor, the physical went well.

***

A few days later I got a call from the doctor's office.

My blood work came in, and one of my numbers had shot up past the normal range.

Yes, if you use Mychart, you've seen this sort of thing before.

Considering I hadn't really changed my diet, and given that the only tweak to my medications was the weaning off of insulin --which shouldn't have had such an impact-- this was cause for concern. (That low marker on the left was during my hospital stay, and the number after that was due to receiving an injection at the hospital.)

The nurse told me that I was to stop one of my medications immediately, wait a few weeks, and come back in for a retest. The unspoken part was that if that didn't work, then I might be in real trouble. 

So, early this week I went in to get my blood drawn once more, which meant fasting since midnight. Again. This part of my new lifestyle I really don't like --outside of the fact that I still don't like needles-- because it takes several days for my digestive system to return to a semblance of normal.

Then I settled in at work and was kept on pins and needles while I waited.

Yeah, kind of like this, right Milton?
(We even have the red stapler!)
From makeameme.

At the end of the week I got a phone call from the nurse once more.

Unfortunately for me, I was preoccupied at the time so I couldn't take the call, but I listened to her message and breathed a sigh of relief.

So it returned to where it had been, on the lower
end of 'normal'. Kind of unnerving as to why the
medication simply started going haywire.

I sent a follow up email as to whether I should stop that medication on an ongoing basis, and the reply I got was yes, but because of that I was told I needed to adjust my diet a bit to compensate for the changes. I'm also scheduled to have another blood test in January to make sure that everything is behaving as it should.

So... I'll count this as a small victory: my medications decreased by one, my critical numbers have either remained at normal-ish or returned to normal, and the doctor was okay with this overall trend.

Still, this was a reminder that my projected overall lifespan isn't what I'd call 'good' by any stretch.

Given that my genealogy research has provided me with info that a lot of my relatives in the past died in their 50s and 60s**** I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by this, but one of my relatives died in the early 20th century from a "diabetic coma", which caused me to sit up and take notice. For some people that'd be an interesting little quirk of my family tree, but for me, knowing what I know now about my health issues, that was both a reminder to be vigilant and a warning that I'd better get my shit together because I can't count on dumb luck to carry me through.

*Oh yes, when you've both Type-2 Diabetes and Hypertension (aka high blood pressure) you have to keep a close eye on your blood glucose levels and blood pressure. I guess you don't have to do that if you don't want to, but kind of winging it isn't conducive to a long lifespan. Or to put it more bluntly, if I don't keep track of how my body is doing I should start picking out a gravesite now and save my surviving family the trouble.

**Metformin still can mess with my digestion from time to time. Of all the medications I've ever taken that say "take with food", this one you absolutely have to. Even so, about twice a month my digestive system kicks me in the ass so bad that I have to lie down for several hours, and if I'm not there I'm on the toilet. Still, it's a small price to pay for keeping my body (relatively) healthy.

***Like back in 1996 when we went to Denver for the 1996 Geological Society of America conference. My wife had a presentation, and she kept encouraging me to go visit museums or look around at various places. Or attend the 'Spouses Events' that were lined up. Or... you get the idea.

What did I do?

I brought a book and drove east out of Denver to a rest stop on the highway, and read for some hours. I did this for a couple of days. Sure, after the conference we went to Rocky Mountain National Park and camped in the cold early November weather that was 15F/-9.4C before you add in the 20 MPH wind chill, but I had absolutely no desire to get involved with the crowds or things to do around Denver. Like a true introvert, I wanted to unplug and curl up with a book.

****Unless there's a traumatic event, that is. I do have a few of those in my ancestors' past. One I knew beforehand, but others not so much. Maybe I ought to do a follow up post on some of that.