Having completed my bloods a month before, I boldly stroll into my primary doc’s office, waiting to hear the good news. I had been exercising, watching my carbs, exercising my good attitude (even more important than the body!) and watching the blood pressure. What on earth else could I do to make this body achieve a gold star report?
“Oh,” she says, (tone going down at the end as she studied the screen before her). “Have you not been exercising?” I feel my bottom lip start to tremble just a little, like I was about to be in trouble. “Yes,” I respond quietly, eyes to the ground. “I mean I did have two surgeries in six months and that took some extra recovery time, so perhaps not exercising as much as I would have liked …” My voice drifts away.
“Your bad cholesterol is really high!” she chides after a big sigh. Oh? (What on earth good does that stuff do anyways?)
“But isn’t my good cholesterol like really good?” I quibble. (Don’t argue with your doctor.) “Ha, not good enough!” she rebukes.
“Well, I have been enjoying my fresh eggs that my chickens lay every day,” I’m going on the defensive (don’t do that with your doctor).
“Yes, well, stop the fresh eggs, butter, cheese, whole milk, red meat!” she smiled widely. (Might as well die is what I’m thinking. All the things I love so very much. Why even bother to eat?) “Those are the things that are giving you really high cholesterol; but at least your iron levels are up, ha ha!” Well, fish.
“Come back in six months and let’s see an exerted effort to bring the bad cholesterol down, shall we!” she adds cheerfully. “Get your bloods done the week before you come.”
Well, fish again. I walk very slowly from her office with my eyes to the ground. I don’t think I have ever been so chided about something I understand so little of! I tell my nurse-daughter how high my bad cholesterol is. “Oh, that IS high!” she comments. “Is it that bad to have it so high?” I query, since I had gone my whole life, to this point, only boasting the good kind. This was new territory.
“Well, yes, mother. It can give you blocked arteries, you know, leading to a heart attack, stroke … pretty life-threatening, I’d say, yeah!”
I glumly head over to that enormous food and other things warehouse in Salinas, noting that all my favorite things on the list, Irish butter and cheese for instance, should likely not be purchased this time around. No more full-fat milk either, that I love to pieces in my English tea. Also, the kind of yoghurt and cottage cheese I had been purchasing should be the low-fat kind and not the kind on my list. I began reading the labels before me and I could see how I had fallen off the dietary horse, as it were. I always used to buy low fat, because it sounded like something that so-called healthy people do (except for my skinny sister, she goes yucky no-fat!). I had no actual experience of this blooming coal-es-terol thing until I started letting my guard down and going full fat all the way, like a happy young thing full of the joys of spring in the food aisles.
“This shopping lark is no fun if you can’t buy the good stuff!” I send a self-indulgent message to my daughter. “Oh, mother, don’t be so dramatic! Just do everything in moderation. Most of the time eat the healthy stuff and then treat yourself once in a while, so you don’t feel ripped off!”
“Can I have the Kerrygold cheese and butter for my birthday?” I ask like a spoiled child. “Well, yes. If you have been really good the remainder of the time,” she chirps. How did this role reversal thing happen so quickly between a parent and child?
I escape the enormous warehouse with low fat yoghurt, mozzarella cheese (supposedly low fat), low fat cottage cheese, a melon, some mushrooms and salad. Not my usual hefty haul of yummies from that place, but not the eye-watering bill either. Perhaps this coal-es-terol dilemma would be as good on my pocketbook as my arteries!
The day after being chided by my doctor, I became a label-reader and did happy dances every time I found something that had Zero C Stuff in it. Who knew that a Pay Day peanut bar has none of it! Took that to the bank and ate it as my dessert. “Mum, you’ve got to watch your sugars too!” Oh heck, not that again. “My doc said that everything else in my blood was really good,” I challenge. “Yeah, well, too much sugar can really send things haywire in the blood and quickly,” she stipulates. “Look at dad, he became a diabetic with all the sugar he was eating!”
So, there we have it, no fun food whatsoever for old people like me, or, one way or another, it will kill us.
The Golden Years, they say, ha! If you are not reading labels because of the high levels of danger-danger coal-es-terol in the foods, you are trying to navigate the health and wellness roadblocks laid down for you oldies every step of the way.
“It’s likely time for your colonoscopy,” my lady doctor informs me as I’m trying to break out of her office after the coal-es-terol fiasco. “We’ll get you all set up for that next time!” (Just kill me now.)
“Oh,” (my body is halfway through the door at this point) “you also need to get your shingles vaccinations done! It’s a two-step process, very likely to make you sick afterwards, so plan accordingly! I myself was down for a few days!” God, I felt depressed after all that. Nearly depressed enough to head back to that enormous food warehouse place and buy me some Kerrygold butter and cheese.
Instead, I pondered the alternative of not having received the terrifying bad coal-es-terol diagnosis when I did and told myself to get a grip. Much better to try and clean out my tubes now than end up in the ER with some kind of life-threatening adventure in the future!
The Golden Years, what a joke. From multiple joint replacements, to colonoscopies and bad coal-es-terol diagnoses, who would have time to go to work even if they wanted to? Better get ready, next week is time for the eye doctor and the following week the dentist — I can hardly stand myself. This fast lane of aging makes one want to eat a lot of butter and cheese with a side of tri-tip.
Lucy Jensen may be reached at lu*************@***il.com.
