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Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Diagnosed with High Cholesterol



I have been diagnosed with having high cholesterol.  All my other medical tests turned out fine, other than having to have a mammogram once a year instead of two years.  For having dense tissue.

I have a doctor's appointment next week to discuss it, but I did a little reading online about it.  I'm a little nervous it will affect my eating habits, which are not very good.   I am addicted to sweets, and have no problem at all eating a family size bag of caramels.  And that is a day that I'm being careful of what I eat.

I know mother was diagnosed with this at my age, probably a bit older actually.  She didn't go for regular testing though, but she had symptoms of having a hard time moving her legs.  So she went to see a doctor and they found out she had high cholesterol.

I'm still just trying to absorb this information.  Mother had it, I got it, but I had no symptoms, and apparently there are no symptoms from what I was reading online.  Only a blood test can determine it.  It can run in families.  I already look like her, and have the same diagnosis.

I remember she lived on cabbage soup lots.  Very careful with what she ate.  I CAN'T LIVE LIKE THAT.   I know, I'm not trying to find pity here, just venting.  I have special addictions brought on by a life of trauma.  Junk food makes me feel normal.  It comforts me.  When things go badly for me, I always have had a temporary way out.

I was fortunate not to be a drug addict or worse.  Mother did intend to make me feel so horrible about myself then she would placate me with hot chocolate and candy.  I still remember that wolf in Lisette's blog from House of Mirrors.  I must have stared at that wolf for a long time.  The wolf was holding out a treat and he had a fork in his other had to eat you with.

When the doctor told me that I felt scared.  I am already aware of the eating life a high cholesterol person.  It is not good.  I am probably not as bad as mother, for she only went in when she was already sick.

When I went in to have these medical tests, the only one that scared me really was the one for colorectal cancer, for I seem to get a pain in my lower back once in a while, and I heard that was a symptom.  But that was ok.

I guess I have to work with my emotions a lot more.  I feel helpless right now, and I can't understand that I got this and mother did too.

I also heard that high cholesterol can be caused by stress.  I stress about a lot of things.  Just tonight I was feeling horrible.  Just horrible and I couldn't figure out why.

So I just let myself feel horrible.  That's it.  No positive thinking.  And guess what?  In about 10 minutes I was feeling better.  For no reason either, I just went with the flow.

I know it can be said that an uneducated woman like my mother can be an emotional feeder.  She doesn't know any better right?  But she did tell me that she enjoyed seeing me miserable.  I realize now why she told me that.  She was grooming me to always feel miserable to please her.

Who does that?  Who feels pleasure at their daughter feeling miserable?  I can't stand it when the kids tell me that they feel badly, I go frantic and I absorb their pain.  I like it when they are happy.

A couple of months ago, my son told me he was going to go back to school.  At age 26, he already became a foreman in the construction industry, he was a roofer.  But he is a workaholic and with long winters off, he sort of went nuts.

He's going back to school, and I feel scared for him, but I'm trusting him to make the right decisions. But he didn't tell me that he was going to work in the summer months, and go to school in the winter. He didn't tell me that.  I only heard he was going back to school.  I thought he got into a fight with his boss or got fired, and all my brain did was go crazy.  Then he explained it to me later.

I couldn't bring myself to ask him if he got fired, I didn't know what to do, and he didn't explain right away.  So we talked about this and he promised to explain things to me better.  How much junk food did I consume over that one?  I'm ashamed to tell you.

So I have to figure out how my emotions work with the emotional eating, and I have to try to solve the problem that way.  If I have to eat healthy, there will be more emotional work.  And it seems to be endless.

People think I'm a type A personality, but I think I'm authentically the type B laid back type.  But mother never allowed it.  Once she came back into my life in 2005 I was doing fine.  But it was a fly by the seat of my pants sort of life.  But I had everything covered.  Nothing was undone, like mother claiming it was.  I was living a good life.  Look for that when you feel stressed for no reason.  You might be living to please a malignant narcissist.

7 comments:

  1. I have a phone call into my liver telling it needs to shape up or ship out. It's not returning my calls. I don't think a person can live their whole life like an over wound watch and not have a spring pop out somewhere.

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    1. Me either. I think the toll of stress takes an immense toll on a person. Several autoimmune diseases later, I KNOW it does. I have to live stress-free to stay alive, just a little bit and it's leg infection time or something else.

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  2. I've always felt like an overwound watch. Sitting here trying to enjoy a peaceful winter day, I feel the tension like everything is going to explode. That will be an issue in dealing with my cholesterol, I'm supposed to try to eliminate stress, like its all so easy.

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    1. Me too, I hope you feel better soon Joan. I wonder how I have to "feel" all the time.

      Did he prescribe a statin for the cholesterol? I've eaten eggs lately so I'm one to talk, eggs seem to kill hunger pain a lot better then cereal and for longer amount of hours. Watch out for any hydrogenated stuff, margarine etc, seems to make cholesterol worse. I know it stinks, I hate all the health number games stuff. It's enough to stress one out and the evil numbers are always bad. I hated math as a kid and there's a reason.

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    2. I have an appt next wednesday to discuss it. This doctor doesn't seem to like to go through the drug route, she always tries to do things holistically. Through diet and exercise. I read online that I'm required to exercise 2.5 hours a week, and that will be hard on its own, not one for exercise either. I never concerned myself with my health, ever, this always seemed to be what other people did. I admire your strength and willpower.

      On another note, we have a doctor that attends our church and he speaks sometimes and one time he said that eggs are good, and actually if you ate 50 eggs a week you are fine, and probably lower your cholesterol. He said the cereal companies put out the ads that taint eggs as being bad, just to sell cereal.

      We use the olive oil margarine, and I'm wondering if that is good. I like butter but it gets too hard here in the winter, we have to use soft margarine. But I don't know much about the routine for this, we will discuss this next week. Thanks. I really do admire your strength and willpower. I wish I had one tenth of it.

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  3. If there is one saving grace about all this is that it forged some incredibly nice people who might have been bastards if we had not had the bastard propensity beat out of us.

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    1. I know, its rather biblical. The hard times turned us into some great people, even though we had to pay the price. I feel like I got my butt kicked to get to heaven.

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