à l'hôpital

piano: incongruous yet strangely apropos

I'm waiting for my 9:40 a.m. appointment with my diabetes doc. Before I see her, I need to give a second blood sample; the first one was given at 7:30 a.m., right as I came in. I ate some salad and a muffin after giving five test tubes of blood and maybe 200 cc of urine. I'm supposed to wait about an hour before I go back to the phlebotomy section to give blood again. As I'd said before, I imagine this second blood sample is to measure my insulin resistance, which is pretty awful after years of self-abuse (no, not a reference to masturbation). However, despite the call to get the second blood sample, I usually don't hear any comments about it. 

Anyway, BP at the hospital was 120/63, which is arguably higher than my BP early this morning (111/72) but still low by my usual hospital-visit standards. More on all of this later. I just have to get through the next 70 to 90 minutes.

UPDATE: 10:45 a.m. Back at my place now. My blood sugar (which I didn't take this morning) was 114—not horrible, but not ideal (80–90 = excellent). My A1c was bad, but not as bad as I'd thought: This past January, it was 6.8, which seemed like a good downward trend. My own calculations put my A1c at 7.77 as of yesterday, but today, the hospital measured it at 7.3. And as I suspected, not a thing was said about my insulin resistance (or "glucose tolerance" per the English term on the banner above the station where I gave my second blood sample).

Next time I visit the hospital, I'll be getting an eye exam since it's been two years since the heart attack. No word about a kidney exam; the doc merely suggested that I keep cutting back on carbs and drink more water. Normally, I'd consider that tiresome advice since I know all that already, but I was feeling a bit repentant this morning because I knew my A1c's increase was all my fault. Who else is to blame for my diet but me? I try to stay on the wagon, but it requires a lot of willpower, and I've always been the lazy, self-indulgent type.

Speaking of lazy: Hospital visits always stress me out, and I'm feeling lazy right now. So I'm going to eat a much-needed lunch, then write up a long-overdue review of The Exorcist—both the novel and the movie. Lots of meaty material to discuss. This means I'll be mailing my diplomas first thing on Monday.