The Owl Wagon

Go ahead, roost anywhere.  Lots of room…

Yes, this is my not terribly clever way of saying that the chickens have finally come home to roost here at Chez Owl Wagon.  What I mean by that is:

Three weeks ago the Healthiest Fat Old Lady on Earth (that would be me)  was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.

It had been 3 years since I’d had my glucose & cholesterol checked, so back in early April my doctor set me up with a lab appointment  to have some blood drawn and testing done.    I fasted for 12 hours, had my blood drawn, and awaited the results with blithe indifference.  After all, was I not the reigning Healthiest Fat Old Lady on the planet??   Had not every blood test I’d ever taken come back with stellarly fabulous good numbers?

Grossly obese or pre-anorexic; pregnant or not-pregnant; for 50 years no matter my condition my cholesterol was always well below 200 (good), my blood glucose numbers in the 65-70 range(very good), my blood pressure a rock-steady 110/70 (great).

Then shortly after I turned 50 my blood pressure inexplicably rose to 140/90.  I swear it did it all on its own.  No weight change, no change of diet or activity level …  I turned 50 and I suddenly got high blood pressure, that’s all there was to it.   Weird.

But my cholesterol remained low and my blood glucose levels were always comfortably in the normal range.

In 2006 I decided to take up smoking again.   I had smoked a pack and a half a day (Marlboro Menthols) for 14 years , until my then-fiance nagged me once too often and I said to him “Don’t think I can quit?  Watch this, buster”  and broke a full pack of cigs in half,  threw them in the trash, and didn’t  smoke again for 21 years.  Had 2 kids, who’ve grown up into non-smoking, 6′2″,  fabulously good looking young men, and all four of us have  fabulously pink healthy smoke free lungs, yay us!    So why take it up again?  Two words:  Drinking Liberally.

Yeah, I joined my local DL chapter, which meets weekly in a bar.   Sitting outside on the patio, glass of beer in one hand, I’d look at my other, empty hand and think  What’s missing from this picture?  So I started smoking Natural American Spirit ultralights.   The most I’d smoke in a day was 6 cigarettes, and that was usually the day of our weekly DL get together.    I did this for almost 2 years, but in early 2008 after suffering through a bout of bronchitis that lasted nearly three months, I decided that even those 3 or 4 or 6 cigs per day was too much.  So I quit. Again.

And now here I was in mid-April of 2009, age 56, smoke free for a year, weight exactly the same for the past 2 years, waiting for my lab results and serenely expecting nothing but good numbers,  like always.  The results arrived on April 15th.  I got home from work at 6 pm, looked through the mail,  saw the letter from the clinic, opened and read it — and burst into tears.

Blood Glucose:  145 ?!

Hgb A1c:    6.7 ?!

Wtf??  What kind of sick joke is this?   I am the Healthiest Fat Old Lady in the World, am I not?!   This is not supposed to happen to the likes of me!   It oughtn’t be allowed!!

But it is allowed.    It is indeed supposed to.  It  happens to the likes of me just the same as it happens to millions of other people.   I’m not special.  I’m not impervious.  I am a  5′11″,  313#,  56 year old woman who spends 90% of every day sitting in front of a computer screen.

Welcome home, chickens.