Friday, January 28, 2011

CHECK ENGINE


If you have ever been driving your car and the Check Engine light comes on, you know the feeling. UGH, what does this mean to me? Likewise as you reach your "golden years", you need to go in for the 60,000 mile check up. In my case, a growth developed on my shoulder and it served as my "CHECK ENGINE" light.

I first noticed the rough spot on my skin about 60 days ago. I believe strongly in self care and home surgery so I attempted to sand the rough spot off my shoulder. That did not work. It bled and became infected. Then I tried all kinds of chemical treatments to kill the growth. Nothing worked. Pam quietly watched over about a week as I kept trying to cut the growth off. Then, well after she was near crazy watching me, she suggested I go see a "DOCTOR".

We have the BEST Health Coverage on Earth, KAISER. Kaiser Permanente is an integrated managed care consortium found by Henry Kaiser to cover his employees. Today Kaiser covers over 8 million people with full service integrated healthcare. We have been in the Kaiser system for eight years but.....I have never seen a Doctor. I did get my eyes examined once but I did not have a Doctor assigned to me. So I went to Kaiser and saw Dr James Sandys. I picked him because he is an old white guy who can identify with my style.

Dr Sandys looked at my shoulder and asked if I had been "messing with it." I told him I tried home surgery and he asked what I did for a living. I told him I sold food. He said, "I promise I won't try to sell food if you let me take care of the surgery." He sent me to the Lab for some Tests. They cut the growth off my shoulder and I waited for the results.

Turns out I am in great shape. See test results below. The growth was a simple keratosis and not cancer. I need to end my all bacon diet to bring my lipids down a little but I passed the 60,000 mile check up.

My test results:

PROSTATE SPECIFIC ANTIGEN (PSA)
Component Your result Standard range Units
PSA 1.18 < or =" 4.5">

Component Your result Standard range Units
CHOLESTEROL 205 <200>
TRIGLYCERIDE 159 <150>
HDL 44 >/=40 mg/dL
LDL CALCULATED 129 <100>

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