Saturday, May 01, 2010

paralyzed

today i woke up so early and couldn't possibly go back to sleep. so i did what any reasonable adult would do and reached under my bed to my book stash and pulled out the prisoner of azkaban and read until the light of day woke up one child (who came into our bed and hogged my covers), then another (who then hogged covers from said first child), and eventually a very sleepy david. and this is how it goes, how i am able to read 50+ books per year on average.

speaking of david, we got our health reports back from our life insurance physicals. i tore open our separate letters, no doubt to somehow "see who was healthier" or something. whatever. turns out david has high cholesterol (279). i opened it and tears started coming to my eyes. david's grandpa had quite a bout of heart disease that spanned over 40 years and well, i can barely type thinking about david having a heart attack or being sick. he came home and we went over what the internet had to say about heart disease and how to lower your cholesterol levels. i got groceries today and bought heart-healthy specific foods a'plenty - tuna, low sodium whatnots, smart balance canola oil, etc. i don't think ill ever get david to consume tea of any kind nor nuts (besides peanuts) no matter how healthy they might be. another snafu is that i can't consume seafood and being the primary food-maker-and-purchaser i never buy seafood. so i'm going to have to start figuring it out, and often because they recommend heart-healthy fish twice a week. thank God i don't "need" to eat any! (my cholesterol levels were great again.) the point of all of this is that i think it's clear that david and i are genetically different (horray for not marrying you relative!). but in all seriousness we consume a similar diet, david works out 10x more than i do and he is the one who's cholesterol is through the roof and it is just a simple matter of how our bodies deal with what we're given. my pastor jeff always says "garden within the contour of the land" and baby, we are going to restructure his diet and use the land he was given.

still, when i got groceries today i cried every time i picked up the heart-healthy specific version of a product. i can't bear thinking of something awful happening to david. in the check out i stood there and wanted to claw my eyes out with a panic attack. it was so mortifying, not that you're exactly conscience of that at the time. all you feel is RUN! BAD! FREAK OUT! i came home, fell onto the couch and haven't moved since. i'm feeling kind of paralyzed by this news. classic jenny.

4 comments:

Eva said...

i'm sorry to hear that. i would feel the same way. my mom has high cholestrol, and even though she drastically changed her diet, it wouldn't go down. Now she takes a pill for it everyday, and that keeps it in check, seemed to be the only thing that would work.

Anonymous said...

i am in the same boat as you with my husband, and it has been very difficult to deal with. my husband also does not eat nuts, or any other "heart healthy" foods, and it has been a struggle.

As for the fish, I recommend getting a large fillet of salmon and portioning it out in single serving sizes to freeze.... you can have the hubs do this for you if it grosses you out too much. When preparing a fish dish for one person, freezing makes it super simple. I take a frozen salmon piece and put a little fat free plain yogurt on top, then I sprinkle with pepper and dot with capers. I bake it in the toaster oven at 350* for about 15 mins and it turns out perfectly. After cooking I serve with a lemon wedge, brown rice, and wilted spinach. If your husband is not into the yogurt & caper idea, you could try anything that tickles his fancy.... salmon takes well to almost anything!

Good luck and I pray things will work out well for your husband!

Jenny H. said...

Wow. I was in your shoes about 3 years ago. Adam's genes are pre-programmed for high cholesterol. It runs in his family. Mine on the other hand is stellar. Adam takes lipitor and it works really well for him. in the beginning I thought- "lipitor is only for old men who are headed for a heart attack", but then I accepted the fact that if it helps him stay healthy and prolongs his life, why not celebrate the miracle of modern science and praise God for lipitor. Sounds funny, but God is in control. He knows the number of our days. Now that we have this cholesterol information we have the choice to do our best to keep it in check. And thats all we can do. Pray for david and his heart. Pray that God will lift the burden from your mind. He loves you and he will take care of you both if you give this over to Him and cease the thinking that you can save David on your own with Walnuts and Salmon. Prayers for you right now.
Jenny Hoffman

Olive said...

switching a diet is HARD. i feel so bad for him because a) he love love loves ice cream and now can't have it. or rather he has switched to soy ice cream which is just "okay". to show his love for me he bought some walnuts.

SOME WALNUTS!!

this man hates, nay LOATHES walnuts!