Fearfully Made

My Lipid Panel showed a few interesting twists, according to my doctor. While my bad cholesterol was good, my good cholesterol was bad. Triglycerides were slightly elevated but not much to worry about at this time; I just need to watch a little better what I eat. HDL levels were low, and that was interesting, “WAY LOW” according to my doctor, they are supposed to be in a range of 40-60 and mine were about 24. My cholesterol to HDL ratio is 5.55 mg/dL and it should be in a range of 2.00 – 4.50 mg/dL while my calculated LDL is at 58 mg/dL. This was taken from my drawn blood after fasting for 8 hours to make sure the reading were not impacted by my last meal. (Which was bacon fat spread on toasted white bread.)

What does all this mean? I really don’t have any idea … none at all. I had a kind of dazed look in my eyes as the nurse handed me a script for some drugs and moved my hand for me to sign my co-payment check. Whatever happened to the doctor visit I used to know? Where you would wait in the waiting room looking at a 3-year-old magazine, struggling to swallow from a sore throat or holding a swelled knee, ankle, or wrist; something that obviously needed a doctor’s care. The doctor would show you the x-ray of the break with his pen and proceed to wrap the appendage with gauze and plaster. For the sore throat you would get a quick look and a touch with a lengthened cotton swab and a script for something nice and familiar like Penicillin.

It seemed like our bodies were much simpler when I was younger. It seemed kind of like fixing a car. It used to be that anybody with a set of wrenches could lift the hood of any vehicle and fix anything in the engine, slam the hood down and say, “try it now.” Today I open the hood of my truck and I can’t even find something that resembles an engine underneath all the wires and computers. Today I go to a doctor and they don’t tell me my liver is broken and needs a cast, they have to give me a chemistry lesson before they can tell me what is wrong with me.

It is kind of scary as I place this strange colored pill into my mouth and swallow; I think I would prefer the cast or knee brace. Scripture tells us we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” and sometimes I really understand the fearful part.

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