Wednesday's numbers

My blood pressure was higher at the hospital (the usual stress), but here are the numbers I recorded at home before I set out for my Samsung Seoul Hospital appointment:

blood sugar: 104 (not bad, but not ideal)
"official" HbA1c: 7.3 (measured in May)
"home" A1c: 6.79
BP: 129/77 (a bit high for systolic)
weight: 115.5 kg (about 255 lbs.—some weight gain)

Blood sugar got fairly low, but still not under 100. Thursday's blood sugar will be high: after my appointment, I got Subway sandwiches and cookies for lunch (say what you will about the sandwiches, but Subway cookies are strangely good, and despite my being a chocoholic, I think my favorite might be the raspberry cheesecake). A1c continues to go down; my next appointment with the diabetes doc is this coming September 29; if I'm at 6.7-something now, I could be down to 5.6-something by that time. My lowest-ever A1c was 5.7. Ideal A1c is about 5.5—even better if it's lower. I do need to work on my weight, though; the goal still remains to get down to 90 kg, and I'm over 25 kg above that. Maybe I should hire a personal trainer despite how expensive that is. BP is a tad high; it'll come down once I'm distance-walking again. I just bought a hydraulic stepper (photo coming soon), so I'll be doing steps in my room, away from the nasty summer heat, until around the end of August. Because of the clicking/thumping noise the stepper makes, I need to buy some gym tiles so as not to annoy the neighbors who live directly beneath me. I might attempt some nighttime walks outside once in a while, but no promises, especially during flood season (roughly August).

I told the cardiac/stroke doc about my recurring angina (it's not severe, but it's worrisome) and occasional breathing difficulties. These things both hit me when I eat and then walk. (I tried to hide my angina symptoms when I went down to Masan recently, but I'm not sure how successful I was.) The doc said I'll get a heart scan (plus a kidney scan) the next time we meet, but that's not for six months. My next appointment is scheduled for early January next year, so I'll have to cling to life until then. I seem to be at my best when I walk after fasting, and I just learned that walking in a fasted state is a good way to lose weight, so I'll be trying to practice more of that from now on. I also asked the doc how I might schedule a colonoscopy, something I should've done back when I turned fifty. Since I have to call the hospital's cancer center to schedule that appointment, I'm also going to schedule a checkup for my nether regions because I keep thinking I'm feeling a little mass down there (and no, it's not my dick). I also asked whether we could schedule both cardiac/stroke and diabetes appointments to happen on the same date from now on, but the doc said that that would be difficult.

So just to survive, I'm going to have to do a lot more fasting. I've got a few keto things I want to prep for myself this week, but starting next week, I'll be back to fasting on weekdays and eating on weekends. Oh, lovely, lovely discipline. 

It's funny to watch my circumscribed life constricting, depriving me of choices. God is making my decisions for me as I get older and frailer: at this point, I can drop any thoughts of being an actor or a cartoonist; I can also drop any notion of ever climbing my building's staircase three times in a row ever again, or of lifting anything over a hundred pounds (45 kg). That door seems to have closed. All that's really left to me, at this point, are behind-the-desk jobs like video personality and writer, and exercises like light weightlifting and walking (in the right circumstances, and on flat ground for the most part).

But a decrease in choices brings an increase in clarity, which may be the motivation I need to get going with the rest of my increasingly limited life. Wish me luck, and hope that I get through the end of this year. I'd like to visit the States, and maybe France, next year. Also: here's hoping I'm still capable of long walks. In this hot weather, I'm not about to tempt fate by trying a 30K route at night: even the summer nights are hot and humid, and I'd be a sticky, stinky mess, assuming I even survived such a walk.

Righto—more later. My next major appointment is on the 15th of this month to re-renew my F4 visa. I think I have everything I need, document-wise. We'll see.