Current mood:	grateful
Entry tags:	health

Dept. of Health
Today I took part in the medical study I had signed up for a few months ago. It is a comparison of the progression of heart and circulatory system disease between pre-menopausal women with and without lupus. Turns out I am a near-perfect control because of my lack of any type of major physical illness/disease in my life and a family health history free of heart disease. In addition, I signed a consent form to have my information, particularly my blood, used in current and future genetic studies. So I suppose I will live on through karyotyping, if not reproduction.

Everyone I met today was so pleasant and kind; in particular, the woman who drew my blood (eight rather large vials!) and kept me calm and reassured throughout the whole prolonged process. I have only the slightest bruising, which I am very, very pleased about! I also have an accurate height and weight for the first time in years; I am 159.2 cm tall and weigh 76.5 kilos (which translates to being a whole 1/4 inch taller and ten-fifteen pounds lighter than I thought I was). After the blood draw, a rather extended mood/psychological questionnaire, and a free breakfast (yay for quality english muffins!), I proceeded to have a really nifty ultrasound of my carotid arteries. I usually get a little squeamish about the inside of my body, preferring as I do to keep the inside on the inside, but it was fascinating to me to actually see the blood pulsing through my body, and see the split where the carotid splits into the internal (to the brain) and external (to the face) arteries. According to the tech, there's not a trace of plaque that he could detect; the blood flow appears to be clear and strong, and my heart rhythm was textbook normal on the EKG.

So the signs appear to be strong that, approaching 40, I am free of heart disease and arterial plaque buildup, despite having always been overweight or obese. (Fat does NOT always equal unhealthy, people!) I will get a copy of the results of the blood work (lipid panel, cholesterol, etc.) in a few months, so the baseline now exists. This is one of those things you worry about a little bit in the back of your mind; now I know I have nothing to worry about, at least for the time being. The follow-up visit is in three years, so we'll see what normal aging does to a person.

And I made $50, too!