jokes become reality

Ever since our dad dropped dead eating a pizza, dropping dead eating a pizza has been something all of us kids joke about happening to us. And by joke I mean we are all terrified. The fear (a few years ago) prompted me to lose weight, get healthier, and still be terrified. Then everyone got cancer and that added to our fear. Of course I started getting checked for every type of cancer regularly as the doctors suggested (thank you genetics!) but never got my heart checked out. For some reason, the cancer fear was winning the fear battle.
Last month I was flipping through the channels and happened upon the Dr. Oz show right when he said if you have a parent who suddenly drops dead while eating a pizza you are pretty much screwed. Those were not the exact words, but that is what I heard. I called the next morning and scheduled a physical.  It's a good thing I did that! It turns out that to my complete shock and horror, I have the cholesterol levels of a person who  eats at McDonald's followed by a pound of bacon and a cheesecake then sits and plays video games for 14 hours every day.
OH MY BUDDHA! Jokes become reality! Thanks, Dad.
I can't take the cholesterol-lowering medication yet due to some thyroid issues going on, so I'm on a 6 week diet of hormones, Cheerios, oatmeal, nuts, and olive oil to see if it makes any difference. It's not that much different than how I was eating before (despite my love for Trader Joe)  except now if my left arm hurts while I am eating, I freak the hell out. I'm reading the cholesterol labels on everything! Calculating daily cholesterol totals and Weight Watchers points may require an advanced degree, or at the very least, a new app for my phone. If you haven't heard from me in a while, check the cereal or cookie aisles at Ralph's. I should be there with my notepad.

Comments

[Tod Goldberg]

The vegan chocolate chip cookies at Trader Joe's have eased my (considerable) (and exactly the same) pain.

[Nadia]

Jesus! I had pizza for lunch! Take care of yourself! I can't believe you have high cholesterol! Love you! Hope the tea I sent is cholesterol free! Ciao!

[Nadia]

I entered the code from my last comment and it auto corrected to prunes! Too funny!

[Brenna]

I hope you can get this under control as soon and as easily as possible. My husband has genetically high cholesterol as well and he does take medicine. He's had no problems with the meds, thankfully, although he seems to have problems remembering to take the meds on occasion, GRR. So glad you got yourself checked out!

[bcre8uv]

Glad you got checked out!

Do oatmeal cookies count as oatmeal?

~Tami

[susan]

Check out Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman....it changed my life. Heart disease is a reversible preventable illness. You may also want to read the work of Caldwell Esselstyn. His son, Rip, wrote The Engine 2 Diet...that cookbook has some great stories of firefighters who had scary cholesterol, heart disease, etc. and completely reversed their numbers.

[deborah mori]

So glad you went to the doctor! Drink green tea... it lowers cholesterol. I used to drink it all the time and my numbers were lower by 20 points just last year! Guess I'm drinkin' green tea again! Gen Mai Cha is my favorite.

Happy holidays to you Linda!

[B. Klahn]

if you watch Dr. Oz he also had a section about womens cholesterol being different than mens and after listening to that I did some research and found the levels for men are totally different than the ones for women. Most drug testing apparently is done on men and they don't really know that much about what women's levels should be. Since your dad died on the sofa watching TV AFTER eating pizza you might not want to lay down after injesting a meal, particularly one heavy in fat (read cheese)? Just a thought.

[cjaxon]

Oh, do not remind me about my cholesterol.... I am studiously avoiding that discussion. Maybe next year...