Oh, Oh, my blood don't lie

Today, I took the next step in my osteoporotic life. I met with my primary care physician (known as a PCP in the labyrinthine health care industry) to discuss my DEXA scan and all the horrible things that could be causing my low bone density. As he quickly rattled off potential culprits, I had a mental image of typing in disease names into WebMD and Google. Funny what you can cook up in your head. I used to believe the calculators on the running sites that said my 10 mile time and half marathon time would get me a sub-3 hour marathon. Thing was, you still had to run the damn thing in under 3 hours. With the medical sites, you read the symptoms and you are convinced you have the disease. No conclusions today, just lab tests.

First the always joyful visit to the bathroom with the box on the wall that has a door on your side and a door on the lab tech's side. Do you suppose that anyone ever puts something other than the jar of urine in there, you know just to "piss" them off or maybe evoke a laugh or two? I didn't think of it then because I was too wrapped up in trying to use the furnished Sharpie to write my name on the cup all the while hoping that past users of the pen wrote their name before they peed on their hand, or was that just me?

Then I got to sit in the chair with the big winged arms and watch a nurse express 8 vials of blood out of my arm. They will be testing for damn near everything. The hope is that they find everything normal and then we get to attack the symptoms. I feel lucky for reasons as varied as energy level and my recent attempts at athletic glory that landed me in the boot and this silly discussion.

The numbers are coming and they won't lie. Blood tests are more centerfold than lingerie catalog. Very revealing.

Stay tuned.