A to Z Blogging Challenge – B is for Blood

As commonly happens when you hit a certain age and all of those years of not taking care of yourself because, honestly, you never expected to be alive this long, health problems crop up that necessitate regular doctor visits. Holding a commercial driver’s license like I do, such visits become mandatory for me to be able to keep my license, and by extension, my job.

About five years ago, one of my routine DOT physicals detected that my blood pressure was a tad elevated. I’m sure that having just come off the road after dealing with typical rush-hour traffic would be enough to make anyone’s blood pressure a bit high, but I still needed to seek out a doctor to confirm the diagnosis and begin a treatment plan, if so warranted.

What does all of this have to do with the word of the day? you may be asking yourself. A fair question, that, and congratulate yourself for being so smart to think to even ask it in the first place.

You see, up until this moment, I did not have a primary care doctor. I didn’t have ANY doctor, mostly because I couldn’t AFFORD a doctor. I did some research, which consisted of looking through the provider directory in my insurance plan to find one that was taking new patients, was close by, and hopefully would not start the lecture on how I had let myself go.

I met with the doctor, and he seemed like a decent sort until he started scaring me with his use of the “D” word as related to my weight and overall well-being, the word being “diabetes.” Naturally, being a new patient, he wanted to get some blood drawn to see what he might be dealing with. I didn't think much of this as it seemed fairly routine to me.

Until, visit after visit, he always concluded by ordering more blood drawn.

LOTS of it. I think the record was ten tubes of blood in one sitting.

This led me to develop a theory about my doctor fellow. I am now convinced that my doctor is, in reality, a sanguinarian. He’s not drawing ALL of that blood for testing purposes, it’s so he can have a snack during the busy day ahead. It’s how he keeps his youthful appearance … see a couple of patients, chug a tube or two, back to work.

I’ve also never seen him venture out toward the front of the office, with the big windows that let the sunlight in. Just sayin’.

Anyway, to wrap this up, I was indeed diagnosed as hypertensive, with a few other maladies thrown in for good measure. I now take all kinds o’ pills that don’t give me all kinds o’ thrills, but I’m feeling a bit better than I had been.

And it seems the doc’s on a diet. Only four tubes this last visit. Maybe it’s because of all that bacon fat running through my veins… might be raising his cholesterol.