Internist Appt. today

I'm back from my internist appt. this morning, which was probably a month or so overdue, but not a big deal. I've been tracking my blood sugars and blood pressure readings since January. I put them in an Excel spreadsheet last night and got averages. The blood sugar average was 116, not great, but not horrible (considering the Megace I am on raises them). He was fine with that. The blood pressure readings are averaging 126/78 for the entire time, but the last month they have been going up and are averaging 135/83. He's still fine with those though. My bp at the office with the nurse was 130/90 and then later he took it and it was sky high. He said I really do have white coat hypertension and was going to put that down in my file. I told him he didn't want to know what my readings were at the oncologists office. He said if they give me a hard time to just show them my spreadsheets :-)

So we talked about my struggles with trying to be healthy and control these things and also wanting to enjoy my life. The reality is I am not going to live to be 85, so I don't need the same level of control that a normal healthy person would. His suggestion is I do what I can live with, and if that puts things into a higher range then we can talk about medications to deal with it, but that he doesn't want me stressing over this (which I have been, big time). I'm going to go in for bloodwork tomorrow (I wasn't fasting today) and we'll see what's up. My biggest concern is my kidney function which wasn't so good last time. I think it's all revolving around my ibuprofen use for my back pain. It raises my blood pressure (as does the back pain itself) and it can affect kidney function also (as does the bp, and it's also possible that the chemos that I have done have done some damage, particularly the cisplatin and carboplatin). I generally only take 3 otc pills a day, but I've been taking them every day for a long time (since the fall of 2006). But there are not very good alternatives, you start getting into narcotics which have a whole bunch of other issues. He did mention one drug, I can't remember the name, which wasn't quite a narcotic, but it did make most people fuzzy headed. So hopefully the kidney stuff is okay so I can just keep taking the ibuprofen. He's going to do my cholesterol, since it hasn't been done in years, but again, it's not likely we'll do anything about it if it's not great.

Sigh, this has been a real struggle for me. I have had to come to terms with the fact that I have the propensity for two genetic diseases (diabetes/pre-diabetes & hypertension) that are being exacerbated by the medications I am taking (Megace and ibuprofen) and the pain and stress in my life. This isn't easy for me, I get into the perfectionist mode, thinking that these are things that I should be able to control (or prevent in the first place) and that it is a failing on my part when I can't. I don't think it helps that the medical world and society blames us overweight people for all of our health problems and if we just had better self control we wouldn't be in this situation. I read an article recently that helped me a bit. In it an endocrinologist told a woman who was doing the same kind of thing that I do (blaming herself) that the reality was that she had a genetic disease. Maybe she could have put it off a few years, but she was still going to get it. If someone does not have the genetic predisposition they could be obese for years and never get diabetes. Someone with the genetic predisposition could be just a bit overweight and get it. It's just the luck of the genes. She also talked about the 80/20 rule, keep tight control 80% of the time and enjoy yourself the other 20%. Sounds good in theory, but I am also dealing with my lifelong emotional eating issues on top of all this. I probably have a better diet than most people, regardless of size, but when I am stressed (which is all too often these days) I think that a steady diet of cake and ice cream would be a good thing (I don't do it, but I really want to! Instead I often find myself "eating around" the food I want, by eating too much of the healthier foods). I need to find a way to have my cake and eat it too so to speak. A life without cake is just not a good one, but a steady diet of it is too much.

In other health news I had my 6 month repeat mammogram last Friday on my right breast (back in November something abnormal showed up). The radiologist said it was fine, they couldn't even see anything this time, so I'm back to my normal screening mammograms in 6 months. I scheduled my ct scan for June 11th (and see my med onc and my gyn onc the following week) to see whether the Megace continues to hold the tumor stable or whether I'll be needing to start chemo this summer. I've increased my acupuncture appts. to every 2 weeks (at the most) hoping that will help my back from getting too bad during these stressful times ahead.

So that's the news, I think I'm calmer after talking to my dr. He's getting to know me and so knows better what I need to hear. Time to go to my Open Studio class now!