Lab results in 2020s

I got my lab results, and not surprisingly, many of the numbers aren’t good. I suspected my TSH was elevated, and it turns out I was right. Fortunately, it’s just barely into the double digits at 10.34. I’ll start taking my multivitamins daily. The question is, what’s responsible for that? Is it connected to my gastro issues or something else? It explains why I’ve had some hypo symptoms but not why I’m having trouble falling asleep or why my weight is down a few pounds. Maybe I’m starting to lose muscle now that I’m getting old.

Surprisingly, my T4 was never tested, but that’s always been normal. Liver and kidney function are fine, but my RBC and hematocrit are up a bit. That’s easily explainable by dehydration. Sometime after getting back from the lab yesterday, I became very lightheaded and my blood pressure crashed to 100/59 because I was dehydrated.

My glucose was 107, and I’m officially pre-diabetic with an A1C of 6.0. Tom was as high as 6.2, but he’s been pre-diabetic for over a decade, so hopefully, neither one of us will actually cross over into being diabetic. I still prefer happiness over misery, but I’m going to do my best to find a good balance to help keep me out of the diabetic range without killing myself and feeling overly deprived of anything.

Weight loss is out of the question with the way I have to cut my calories so low to compensate for my thyroid issues, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life hungry, grumpy, and adding to my fatigue. But I can eat healthier and lessen my sugar intake. The thing is that I’m not that big, I already eat healthy most of the time, and get more than the recommended 150 minutes a week of exercise, so I know it’s mostly a genetic thing. My mother had it, her father had it, my sister has it, and I’m sure there are others too. Skinny athletes can get diabetes. Still, I’ve got to try to get it under control because I know I wouldn’t be able to tolerate diabetes medication. I’m way too prone to side effects for that. I’ve heard all kinds of nasty things about diabetes medication, so if I can barely tolerate medications that rarely give anyone trouble, I can just imagine what I would be in for on diabetes medication. So I’m not going to put myself out and make myself miserable, but I’m going to do what I can to improve my health, including going back to strength training a couple of times a week, even if that means I have to squeeze myself into a crowded lanai to get at the Bowflex in 90-degree weather.

Last but not least, my total cholesterol, LDL, and non-HDL were through the roof. I was surprised to find my triglycerides were normal.

While I’m on the subject of medical stuff, every now and then I look up the reviews on some of my old doctors out of curiosity. My old ENT, whom I loved so much, is still widely hated, LOL. One woman even claims she mishandled something when working on her daughter’s tonsils, which left her unable to feel her lower lip, and how the doctor won’t take responsibility for malpractice, etc. Others say she’s not “warm and fuzzy.” LOL. She started off on the serious side with me but quickly became one of the most friendly and personable doctors I ever knew.

I got the incense sticks I ordered today, and I can’t say I’m that impressed. They’re so old and dry it’s almost like they’re blank sticks. Some of them I can smell, but half of them just smell like smoke. I ordered some hand-dipped patchouli through Walmart. Haven’t gotten the incense matches yet.

The safety pins didn’t hold the sheet snug on the waterbed, so we ran the straps we were using before underneath the bed frame, and we’ll see if that helps keep them a bit taut, though I don’t think it will.

My lovable but naughty little rat pulled the eyelashes off one of Bailey’s eyes, so now we’re looking into a suitable glue so I can put new eyelashes on her. Tinkerbella loves climbing the closet shelves, and the doll was sitting on it. She could use new ones, though, because the old ones were kind of bent out of shape with all the moving we’ve done over the years.

The honker announced that his daughter’s pregnant and his grandson was on the way. Good for him, and good for me too, hopefully, because now maybe she’ll skip coming to Florida next winter and using his truck so he can annoy me more often with the motorcycle. I don’t know how far along she is, but I would think that for most of the time he’s down here, if she wasn’t at the end of her pregnancy, then maybe she wouldn’t want to travel with a kid so young.

The only dream I remember last night was owning a gas car again and being too broke to fill it up.

I connected ChatGPT to OneDrive and asked it to correct a 36-page story that had 12 chapters but it only corrected part of it. I ended up with just 5 very small chapters and 7 pages. So it’s great for current stories and journals but not projects that are already done. It might have done a better job if I fed it one chapter at a time rather than uploading the entire document.

It’s not really worth redoing old stories, though. At least not right now. I like how I can tell it not to omit swears or change them and it doesn’t. I also like how I can tell it to put the current day, date, and time for when I copy it in Word since Word doesn’t automatically timestamp entries like the blogging sites do. I have to add italics, though.

Last updated June 08, 2024