The Heart Wants What It Wants
I should have seen this coming. With a family history of heart disease and my really horrible eating habits (i.e. anything that’s ‘bad’, I do, and I do it consistently), discovering I have high cholesterol shouldn’t come as a surprise at all. And yet, seeing the numbers in front of me, bright red and 250% above the recommended range is a shot to the heart.
It doesn’t help either that when I panicked and sent these results to the doctors in my life (my dad, my aunt, my best friend from kindergarten), they were all aghast. Varying versions of, “I’m not trying to scare you but it’s bad.” which of course scared me more. I now hold the ‘highest marks’ in my family — out of all of those who have taken this test
I’m the girl that does well in tests — I don’t fail them! I don’t get red marks! I prepare and I take a test and I do well-ish. But I guess 32 years of an unregulated diet (I live to eat, after all) and the familial history of heart disease has brought me here. I know this seems like nothing to a lot of people. High cholesterol apparently is so common, I have friends younger than me on statins. It just feels weird for this to be happening to me.
And so after 3 family/friends opinions and 2 GPs who didn’t think I needed to see a cardiologist and that I just had to ‘eat grass’ and take statins for 30 days and get another test done, I am more determined than ever to ace that next test come January.
It’s going to be tough. Walking by my favorite hawker fare (pork rice, duck rice) to my weekly bad habit of KFC and McDonalds, it’s going to be a true lifestyle change. I’m ringing all my vegetarian friends to indoctrinate me in their ways. I’ve reinstalled my tracking apps and will try to beat this thing.
I dont’ want to be on medication forever and so I guess I’ll have to actually change the way I eat. Thank goodness I just took that strengthfinder test that said my top trait was consistency. Well, let’s put that to good use and kick this cholesterol’s ass. Send me all the vegetarian faves and low fat meals, I’ll need it.
