I was long overdue for an annual physical, quite possibly by a decade. I mean I had gone through a period of being my heaviest I had ever been, somewhere in the 290 lb range. When that happened, I decided it was best I start to exercise so instead of simply getting a gym membership and not using it (though who hasn’t done that at least once in their life), I rather joined a bootcamp, Camp Gladiator, with some co-workers and proceeded to get healthier through exercise.

I took up swimming and started swimming multiple days a week and then at one point I would go to the gym, workout for 30-45 minutes, then swim for 30-60 minutes. Sometimes I would swim at midnight, as the 24hr Fitness near us had a lap-pool that was well open 24hr a day (more like 22hr, but still).

So having gone through a period of losing weight through exercise and minor changes to my diet, I got down to 250lbs, where I stayed for a long time. I added some muscle, increased my stamina, but overall I just couldn’t get down below 240lbs.

I put some of the weight back on as I stopped eating as good, didn’t work out as much. Then around the time my son was bord, exercise stopped being a priority, as well there was a newborn that needed to be watched, cuddled, fed, burped, played with, soothed, etc.

Fast-forward to Dec 24th 2017 (just under 3 years) and I have a massive gall bladder attack, such that on X-mas morning, we open a few gifts and I inform my wife that she is going to need to drive me to the emergency room. We were up-north for X-mas that year, and that emergency room was 45minutes away, when there isn’t a blizzard. I forgot to mention, there was a blizzard.

So probably closer to 70-80 minutes later we arrive at the ER and I eventually get admitted and scheduled for surgery. Yup, gall bladder had to come out.

I came out of that with the realization that I needed to get back into shape.

On a side note, I probably should have taken the opportunity them to do a proper ‘annual physical’, but part of me just assumed with all the tests they were running it was sort of baked in. Wishful thinking no doubt.

I think my last proper physical was in like 2008/2009. Again I was a relatively healthy individual, who worked out on a semi-regular basis, ate fairly healthy (more on that in a little bit).

After I recovered from my surgery, I found that my appetite was a bit reduced, I went from eating what felt like 3 meals a day, to more like 2 full meals a day, and a snack.

Then in early 2020, I got sick, the sickest I ever was in my life. I got dehydrated, developed a (thankfully mild) bacterial pneumonia. I think it might have been COVID, but there were no tests at the time, but it all started as a head-cold had a splitting headache at the start.

I recovered, but during those few weeks I dropped maybe 20 lbs, I put some of that back on, as it was water weight I had lost. The antibiotics helped to knock out the last remnants of my chest infection. My appetite dropped to really only being hungry for like one full meal a day, with a couple of snacks here and there.

In terms of my weight, I had finally broken through the 240 lb barrier, and I was starting to work out again, we were in OH and the local university has a really NICE swimming pool. So I was swimming a couple of times a week, mind you this is still pandemic times, so just walking outside for a mile or so was a nice bit of exercise.

Overall my weight stayed around 230 for quite some time, then I had COVID in June of 2022, mild case, felt like really bad allergies. It was after that my weight started to drop, not like crazy, crazy dop. But I was seemingly eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and was not gaining and occasionally losing weight. I was being very active, doing a kitchen rennovation, and it was summer time, so kayaking, etc.

While my weight was staying now in the 220 lb range, my pant sizes were dropping.

My wife started to push me to get a physical. And actually, about a year earlier I tried to get one in OH, but a series of events derailed my blood getting taken.

Well, finally in May of 2023 I got my annual physical. They took like three big vials and a small vial from me. Then I got called back in to give another vial, as my blood sugar came back high and they wanted to run another test.

It was an A1C test.

Internet Speeds

I got an email from the lab company that my A1C test results had come in. My wife and I had to go to Chicago to take care of shipping some cargo overseas, another story, for another time. But when I read my lab results my A1C was 12.3

That is incredibly high, all the infographics I read about for A1C results, they stop the scale at 10.

I told my wife that my results came in, and she asked of course “What are they?” and my reply was simple “They are definitely going to be putting me on something.”

That was like a Monday, I wasn’t scheduled to meet with the doctor again until Wednesday.

We took care of the cargo, ate at my favorite Italian restaurant in downtown Chicago, Quartino . Then because I knew it was probably going to be the last sugary treat I was going to have in a long while, we had some DQ on the way back home.

Fear and Loathing

Not in Vegas, of needles. I cannot stand them. And now I get to stab myself with one every night, twice on Tuesdays.

The prescribed me a long-acting insulin that I take before bed along with metformin and a lipitor, because oh yeah, high cholesterol. High cholesterol goes hand-in-hand with Type 2 diabetes. They also suggested that I start the Mediterranean diet immediately and exercise, lots of exercise.

This post has gotten pretty long, so I am going to wrap it up, but that all happened roughly six weeks ago. It’s been an incredible 6 weeks so far, with no doubt tons more “fun” to come. And this is probably burying the lede, get an annual physical, like every fscking year.