Tuesday, July 29, 2003

Annual Physical Part II

I had the second part of my physical today. My sister kindly supplied some family medical history, and as a result, Dr. Selby decided that I should have a precautionary colonoscopy. Oh joy, a visit to the snake doctor!

My bloodwork looked pretty good to fine, with two exceptions. My LDL cholesterol is 130, which is right on the borderline between wonderful and flirting with trouble. Dr. Selby says that all my other bloodwork, my good blood pressure, physical fitness, etc. mean it is nothing to worry about as yet.

The other abnormality is something of a matter of definition. They ran a PSA test, and it came back 3.3. If the test had been evaluated a week ago, I'd have passed. The passing range was 0 - 4.0. But the eggheads have narrrowed the range to 0 - 2.6 as of last Wednesday, so I now get to have a prostate ultrasound. This is (at this stage) just a precautionary test. Dr. Selby said that if they did find a prostate cancer at this stage, successful treatment and full recovery are 95%. As of now, it is very unlikely that I've anything of the sort. I'm not worried, just harried that I have to line these tests up.

Amusingly, I totally flaked on the numbers initially when reporting to Jean, and I told her my cholesterol was 300. She was shocked. After quickly checking the handout Dr. Selby had given me, I realized that there was a 3 and a 0 in there, so I was sorta right.

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