Small Progresses

At the start of this month, health things were somewhat different. I was getting over a cold, hadn’t had my blood test results, and had lost weight. Although there are now different aspects to all three, things are nevertheless still moving slowly forward, and it’s time to comment on those small progresses before I forget about them.

The cold I had did go away at the start of the month, but then I developed a chesty cough toward the middle of the month, something I got over only recently. At its height, I had to reschedule my periodontist appointment because I was coughing so much. I think this was a separate plague, not a continuation or complication of the first one, but I don’t know for sure.

This past Tuesday, I had a meeting on the North Shore, so I stopped in at the doctor’s office to pick up my bloodtest results. The fact that I have to pick them up in person is annoying. I know plenty of people in other areas—including quite rural ones—who can log in to see their test results (among other things), but not only does my GP’s practice not offer that, they also won’t post or email test results.

Inconvenience aside, the results were quite good. This was the first round of blood tests since I started taking allopurinol for gout, and it has lowered the urate levels in blood to just a hair above optimal. They may choose to raise the dosage, or they may choose to wait awhile and see what happens as my weight goes down. There’s also no sign of liver damage.

The statin is also doing a really good job of controlling my cholesterol, and all that bad stuff is well below normal, and even below the guidelines of the New Zealand Guidelines Group (NZGG), which, as the Ministry of Health put it, “was an independent, not-for-profit organisation, set up in 1999 to promote the use of evidence in the delivery of health and disability services. The NZGG went into voluntary liquidation in mid-2012.”

In this case, the NZGG guidelines, which are still in use, were intended as a measure of recommended cholesterol levels for people at risk of cardiovascular disease, based on scientific evidence. While my bad stuff is all within those guidelines, there is one problem: My HDL (“good cholesterol”) remains stubbornly low, and that makes my ratio slightly higher than it should be. My HDL level has been higher than it was at the time of the test, including even when I was in hospital for the procedure.

I don’t know why my HDL level stays low, since I’m more physically active than I had been in years (and exercise is one of the best ways to raise it, though I also eat foods known to raise it, too). This will be something I’ll take up with my doctor at the next visit. But, since it’s not much below targets, I’m not worried—just aware, and determined to add walking to the plan.

My weight, meanwhile, is stable again, which is how it is most weeks. I keep expecting it to stop going down, then it drops some more. The walking will help with that, too

Finally, a bit of oddness. A couple weeks ago, I got a text message reminding me I had an appointment at North Shore Hospital the following week, and to not reply to the text message. Only trouble was, I had no idea what they were on about.

So, I rang my doctor to see if they’d been notified, but they hadn’t been. So, they gave me the number for appointments at the hospital, I rang that, and they had no record of an appointment for me. I stopped thinking about it.

The day after the supposed appointment, I got a call to reschedule it for the middle of next month. It turns out it was from the cardiology department, but I hadn’t had a phone call or letter from them before. At any rate, I have it scheduled now, and maybe I’ll have more information about all this after that visit.

For now, though, I’m just glad to continue to have some good news, however small. I’ll take it.