Got to work twenty minutes early and started working, forgot to clock in, didn't even think about it until 08:20. Wrote a note to my boss to fix it.

Our first patient was a 6-month old, and we had to have anesthesia do their majik before we could do the exam, which came out just fine, of course, when those people do their thing folks, even cute little babies, don't move.

Not my preferred way of doing patients, but very effective. I wish that we could do that on some of our adult patients, heh.

Occasionally we'll have patients who are claustrophobic, and most of the time I can talk them through the exam OK, I've only had a coupla failures. I had an elderly lady recently whose doc gave her a valium to take before she had her head CT. She was terrified but she set her jaw and laid down on the table... and she was out like a light. Waking her up after the exam was done, I asked her how it was. "Wonderful!" she said, "I don't know why I was afraid of that!" and she gave me credit for getting her through this experience. I didn't tell her that it was the pharmaceutical industry that deserved the credit, heh.

Anyway, more good news on the health front. My A1C was done last night finally, and I was at the very upper limits of normal. Normal is 2.0 to 6.0, and I was at 6.0. I would much rather be in the middle, like a 4.0, but what the hell, I'll take what I can get.

Something that has been in the back of my mind, though... am I really diabetic? One of those niggling little questions... but I see other evidence of diabetes, of course. Slow healing, thirst, heart disease, tingling feet, compromised pedal circulation... all stuff that I know is caused by this disease.

The other question, of course, is how much better will I get if I continue my good dietary habits? Will I be considered *not* diabetic at some point?

Additionally, will I be tempted to give up my hard-earned dietary habits if, at some point, somebody tells me that I'm *not* diabetic at some point? How stupid that would be? And how likely?

Well, the point is, I guess, that I'm not willing to even consider changing anything, 'cause I know that I'm on the path to righteousness. I'm gonna get slim and healthy because that's what I want to do. This diabetes thing has helped me to get my mind around my health goals in a way that nothing else has been able to, and I'm gonna cling to it like my life depended on it.

Because, y'know, it really does.

Less weight = less strain on my compromised heart. Less fat/sugar in my diet = less crap to clog my arteries up. More exercise = a shift in the LDL-HDL ratio, maybe helping to unclog those arteries that need it.

Being health means that I can keep doing this journal for another 40-50 years.

Heh, that's hard for me to imagine, being 107 years old and still writing daily.

On the other hand, there was a time in my life when I swore I wouldn't live to see thirty... and a lot of people believed me.

I was wrong then, heh.

23:58... Just under the wire, here.

I got my first call at 21:00 on the dot, and just got home. While I was in the bathroom, the damned pager went off, and I decided to get this up post-haste before I went in to do yet another CT on a patient with a headache.

The next update will probably be on Monday, but I will have kept on writing throughout the weekend, rest assured. And speaking of rest, I probably won't get any.