Good morning everyone... how are we doing this morning? It's dark, rainy and cloudy here today. According to the weather report, the rain may pass on through, but it's supposed to stay cloudy and dreary, though temps are to be near 80°...
There hasn't been a lot going on here this week, but it's been a bit tumultuous anyway. The weather hasn't been nice (rainy, cloudy, etc), which always tends to drag me down and on top of that, there have been some family issues that I won't go into, but of course, it doesn't help having issues at holiday time, as some others can attest to.
Anyway, as you know, I've had my stress test and am waiting for those results. I have the follow-up appointments with my cardiologist tomorrow. I know I did well on the treadmill portion of the test, but I have no idea how the pictures turned out. I do know that I have calcification in my aortic artery and in the coronary arteries in my lungs... we'll just have to see how bad that is and go from there.
On Friday, I had my annual physical with my primary physcian - actually, it's his NP that does my annual. She did it last year and I liked her, but the last time I saw her when I had abdominal issues, I wasn't impressed. She somewhat redeemed herself on Friday, though and was back to being, pretty much, as I'd thought prior to my last visit. We discussed my digestive issues and she said I, definitely need to follow up with gastroenterology with the rapid gastric emptying because with my stomach emptying out in only 29 minutes after I eat, that means I'm not digesting my food and/or getting the nutrients I need from it. I would guess that also means my medications most likely aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing either, which could explain a lot.
I did discuss my thyroid hormone status with the NP. She asked if I was seeing an endocrinologist and I explained my ordeal with the last endo, with whom she's quite familiar, and she said understood my reluctance to see another endo. After some discussion, she agreed with my assessment of my thyroid status and said there's a new endo in the area, to whom they've been referring patients. She said if I was interested she'd be happy to give me a referral, if I wanted to do some research and get back to her, which I said I would do.
It's encouraging to know I have that option and it's on my agenda for discussion with the cardio tomorrow, though there's a chance he may shoot me down.
Of course, we talked about food and she reiterated the advice about eliminating bread, pasta, rice, sugar, harmful fats, etc from my diet. Yes, I know all that, but really, I'm totally craving sugar and salt so once I figure out how to conquer that, I'll be able to eliminate them... :-)
So, with all the Christmas food and everything, I didn't expect to lose any weight and even maintaining seemed "iffy", although I've been trying to limit sugar and most fats. My cholesterol and triglyceride levels were up again this time on my blood work, so I have to really get down to business or my cardio will insist on putting me on statins since I already have the calcifications in my aorta and lung base. I've tried to avoid that as much as possible so we'll see what he has to say.
I'm still walking approximately 1.5 miles/day (provided it's not raining and family issues allow) and with the other things I do, like working in my shop, etc, I'm getting at least 10,000 steps/day and most days am getting much more than that. Atfer the first of the year, my insurance will allow me a free gym membership so I'll look around and try to take advantage of that.
So - I haven't weighed this morning, but yesterday when I weighed, I was down by 1.1 lbs from the week before... wow - certainly hadn't expected that, but considering how hard I've tried to stay away from the sweets, particularly, I'm certainly happy to see it. That just goes to show how leaving out one thing (sugar) from the diet can make a difference.
So - that's my story... I hope your week went exactly as you had planned. I'm anxious to hear about it.
~~I wish everyone a wonderful, successful week and Happy New Year~~