ooooh, just makes me feel so dumb

Back in October, after my yearly physical, my primary care doc, nurse practitioner, actually, prescribed me a statin, because my cholesterol is high. But my numbers haven’t really changed in over five years, except actually to go down a good bit between 2022 and 2023, and we had already agreed that it’s probably hereditary. Because both my parents had high cholesterol and that’s not what killed them. And I already eat a pretty good diet, and I exercise. There just aren’t a lot of lifestyle changes I can make. It’s like I hit 70 and that ticked a box, and the doc decided I had to take something. I refused, and she referred me to a pharmacist to talk about the drug and I still refused. So finally for my sins I had to go see a preventive cardiologist Tuesday. Who almost got me talked into the statin, and that’s why I feel so dumb. Cute young doctor must feel like he can charm all the old ladies.  

Especially when I read the after visit summary in MyChart, it had all this standard stuff about increasing fruits and vegetables, avoiding meat and cheese, and eating more fiber and get more exercise … all things I already do.

I felt better after I read the clinical notes – those actually sounded like he had talked to me, though the notes do include the phrase “Debra is open to taking a statin” – that’s what I feel dumb about. In fact, I am more concerned about my blood pressure than the cholesterol. When they took my blood pressure at the office, it was a high number I’d never seen before. They started me on a diuretic, and I’m supposed to get back to them in 2 weeks. I’m supposed to take my blood pressure twice a day, once in the morning and once at about 5:00pm. That ain’t happening. Even thinking about all that time sitting with the cuff on makes my blood pressure go up.

And I just keep looking more at the statin side effects, especially this Mayo Clinic list of who is most susceptible to sides effects. Speaking of ticking boxes, I check 3:

I already lost two pounds after 4 days on the diuretic, but my BP was still too high when I tried checking today (Sunday). Monday I did check twice and it was ok both times – like more than 30 points lower than in the office. But all this just confirms my decision – I am most concerned about my blood pressure and want to treat that, and just not worry abut the cholesterol for now.

But let’s talk about happier stuff than health issues. A couple of times recently when we’ve gone to see a movie in the theater, we’ve seen previews for Midwinter Break, with Ciaran Hinds and Lesley Manville, as a retired Irish couple vacationing in Amsterdam. I decided to read the book and one of the things they do they call the “ailment hour” where they take a few minutes to list their health concerns and get over it so the can enjoy the rest of the day. So we’re done with ailment hour.

A week ago Sunday we did a day trip to Chicago for the symphony. It was kind of a fun one, first half Tchaikovsky, second half movie music, by a composer named Nino Rota, from the Godfather and an Italian film called the Leopard that I’ve never seen. While we were on the train, I liked this photo essay from the NYT mag about how many New Yorkers rent rather than own. The photographer is Gail Albert Halaban

In the car on the way down we listened to an NPR story about butter lambs and the company that makes them is in Chicago. Turned out we could get them at the Jewel on Wabash, our Jewel when we had the S. Michigan apartment, so Mark got in line at the brunch place and I went and got the lambs. Perfect for your Passover table. We had already decided to ignore the separation of meat and dairy. I was making brisket, and cakes with cream cheese frosting and I used the real thing, not non-dairy. And Waismans made the matzoh butter crunch with real butter.

I made Passover rolls to have something to put the butter on.

They’re kind of like a cross between popovers and matzoh gougeres; you make a matzoh mush and then beat in lots of eggs.

Jasper desperately wanted to eat the butter lambs.

We had a pretty good day before the sedar, we picked up the brisket and put it in the oven, then we went to the zoo.

Extra bowls and dishes of the things on plate for the table

I made two Passover cakes, one Smitten Kitchen, her date and coconut carrot cake, which does have baking powder. I’ve seen on the Interetz that there is some new decree that baking powder is kosher for Passover and apparently both Debs, me and Perelman, agree. Some people liked the carrot cake because it has so much carrot, while others liked everything about it except the large amount of carrot. The other cake was using Bayou Saint Cake, Bronwen Wyatt’s plan to make a lamb cake without a lamb pan. She’s written a bunch about Easter traditions and gay Easter in New Orleans, so how could I resist making a Passover lamb cake? Both cakes had almond flour – rather than matzoh meal – so pretty heavy. But tasty. And I used Claire Saffitz brown butter cream cheese frosting that’s delicious, but I used Costco cream cheese and I think that made the frosting kind of gummy and it would not pipe. So my sheep had no curls. $10 for the box of sugar googly eyes, but I think Jasper and I will play with them more.  

I have more thoughts, and more pictures, from the last two weeks, regarding spring and seasons, and other observations, including I worked 7 early voting shifts … but like the caption Bronwen put on my lamb cake, “This lamb from @debslunch has just had it”, so have I. Goodnight.