CRAMMING FOR THE TEST

Do you remember back in school? Our teachers would announce that there would be a test on this certain material and that we had plenty of time to study and prepare for that test. If you were like me and most of my friends at the time, we would put off any studying or preparation. Maybe we just thought if we forgot it, it would go away. Well it didn’t. Then the day would be announced and we would cram. There were many nights when we would read and study the material in order to be ready for the test.

I mention this because I am again cramming for an exam myself. Now this isn’t a school test. No, this is a regular physical exam which I go through twice a year. It consists of many checks of my body functions and the most important test of all, the blood test. For many years now I have been told by the doctors through my blood test that I had pre-diabetes. For the uninformed, pre-diabetes is a glucose level that gets to the point just below full-blown diabetes. I was told that it was just a matter of time if I didn’t change my ways. I was going to have diabetes. That has been going on now for over twenty years. And, I haven’t really changed my ways. And I haven’t, so far, gotten full blown diabetes.

Here’s what happened. A couple of days ago I was asking my wife why didn’t we have some nice pie or cake for dessert. We rarely get any such treat. To which she replied, we can’t do that, you have a blood test coming up soon and you will want to be ready. In other words, it was time to start cramming for the test.

The question is, is the test really valid if I try to trick my body at the last moment in order to have a better result than would be my result if I didn’t prepare. Have you ever seen a printout of a blood test? It is a series of numbers that look more like a math problem than a medical procedure. I even had a VA doctor tell me once that physical exams are numbers games. You have blood pressure, glucose, body mass index, temperature, weight, height, cholesterol level, both LDL and HDL. There are too many numbers to keep up with. I am quite sure that all of the numbers are important unless you get run over by a semi on your way home from the doctor’s office. Then all bets are off.

Because I take statin drugs I cannot have grapefruit. I love grapefruit. Because I was raised in the south I love desserts and fried foods. Apparently those are no-nos to someone my age. If heaviness were such a problem, how would you explain whales, hippos, and elephants?

I have developed a different philosophy. I think one’s genetic makeup is far more important than a little bit of pie or grapefruit. Most of my relatives lived into very old age eating the southern diet and carrying extra weight. I doubt that any of them ever crammed for a physical exam. Most never even had a physical exam. I heard a noted famous doctor say on TV the other day that if you cut out meat from your diet, you could actually live a few months longer. I don’t want to seem ungrateful for the information but, really? I think I’d rather have a nice rare steak.

My problem now is simple. All I have to do is convince my doctor, and then my wife that my reasoning is sound. In the meantime, I guess I will continue to cram for the exam.

Ron Scarbro