Tomorrow is blood draw day.
If you have familial high cholesterol, you know those appointments come with a special kind of anxiety. You can do everything right and still end up staring at lab results that make you question whether your DNA is actively trying to sabotage you.
But this time feels different.
For nearly a month now, I’ve been committed. Not “I exercised twice and bought a salad” committed. Actual commitment. Every workday on my lunch break, I’ve been climbing onto my treadmill in my home office and walking while watching horror movies. Thankfully I work from home, which means I can improve my cardiovascular health and rot my brain with movies like Terrifier 3 simultaneously. Efficiency matters.
I’ve also been riding my adorable little cruiser bike more often than I’m riding my scooter. That’s saying something because the scooter requires significantly less effort and significantly fewer opportunities to arrive somewhere looking like a sweaty swamp creature.
Today’s ride wasn’t some grand wildlife adventure or beach expedition. My mission was far more important: riding to Kohl’s to buy a pretty dress for my upcoming trip to Louisiana later this month to visit my parents.
Still counts.
Every ride counts.
Every walk counts.
Every healthy meal counts.
Every glass of this absolutely delightful beet juice—which tastes exactly like someone liquefied a garden and poured it into a bottle—counts too. I keep hearing how good it can be for cardiovascular health, so down the hatch it goes. At this point I’d probably drink lawn clippings if there was convincing enough research attached.
The biggest surprise has been the weight loss.
Between weaning off gabapentin and taking 1200mg of berberine each day, the scale has finally started moving in the direction I’ve been hoping for. More importantly, I feel lighter. More energetic. More willing to get outside and move.
At 53 years old, I feel like I’m heading back toward childhood again.
And honestly, that’s not a bad thing.
I’m going to need the energy. Later this month I’m flying to Louisiana to visit my parents, a trip that feels especially important this year. As I mentioned in a previous post, my dad is giving me his beautiful, beloved truck, and while I hope we still have many visits ahead of us, the reality is that his health hasn’t been great. There’s a part of me that’s trying very hard not to think in terms of “lasts,” but also trying not to take a single day for granted.
My son is flying out with me to help me make the drive back to Florida, and about seven hours into that trip we’ll be making a stop that I’m looking forward to almost as much as seeing my parents. My daughter Bella, her husband Logan, and little Maisie Renée live in Destin, and we’re planning to stay with them for a couple of days before finishing the drive home.
Maisie is still just a baby, but she’s one of the biggest reasons I want to stay healthy and active. When we visit, my mission is simple: take over grandparent duty and send Bella and Logan out the door to enjoy themselves. They’re only 19 and 22, unbelievably young to be carrying the responsibilities they do, yet they are absolutely incredible parents. Watching them with Maisie makes me proud every single day. Even though for now it’s mostly through photos and video.
I didn’t have much support when I was raising Bella and Seth, and I know how exhausting those early years can be. If I can give them a little time to be a young couple, to go have dinner, see a movie, wander around somewhere without a diaper bag, then that’s exactly what I want to do. And if improving my health means I have more energy to spoil my granddaughter and help her parents catch their breath, then that’s one more reason to keep drinking the beet juice and riding the bike.
So here I am: riding bikes, drinking beet juice, walking on treadmills while watching homicidal clowns dismember people, eating with my cholesterol numbers in mind, and hoping tomorrow’s blood work reflects some of the effort I’ve been putting in.
If it does, fantastic.
If it doesn’t, I’ll keep going anyway.
Because the truth is that something good has already happened.
I’m enjoying the process.
I enjoy the bike rides, whether they’re taking me to a nature preserve or to Kohl’s.
I enjoy feeling stronger.
I enjoy seeing progress.
And if the Florida temperature climbs to 91 degrees and the trees start looking like they’re one spark away from spontaneous combustion? Well, then it’s time to retire indoors to the air conditioning, stretch out on the bed in nothing but a cat t-shirt and panties, read Black House by Stephen King, listen to Tiny Tim, and congratulate myself for being productive.
After all, my watch says I’ve already hit all my fitness goals today.
And it’s not even 3 PM.
That’s a win in my book.
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