I had a letter from Ashfield Medical Centre a few weeks ago. Apparently they'd been trying to contact me by telephone but could get no answer. No doubt because they had been ringing the old number and we haven't got round to giving them the new one. I am supposed to have an annual check-up so I rang and got an appointment with the nurse for today at 12.10 p.m. I arrived in good time and was actually called into the nurses room well before the time booked. I sat down by the desk and my eye was immediately drawn to a dish containing a rather nasty sharp needle. I have mentioned in previous blog posts my almost total antipathy towards needles, syringes and anything sharp, particularly when they are intended for the purpose of sticking in my anatomy for the purposes of taking blood. The nurse told me it was just to prick one of my fingers for a cholesterol test. It was relatively painless and I she took the sample of blood, tiny as it was, into another room further along the corridor and around five minutes there was a result. My cholesterol level is 4.7 mmol/L which is excellent. It's certainly a good deal easier than having a needle stuck in your arm, your behind, your leg or any other fleshy part of your anatomy and the results come back a good deal faster than the old method when the blood was sent off to be tested in a laboratory somewhere or other. It is therefore well below the 5 mmol/L which is supposed to be the best level for cholesterol. She took my blood pressure which is 154/80. Not brilliant, as it's supposed to be 140/90. But it's getting there.
My B.M.I. (Body Mass Index) is 29. This as far as I can see is measured by taking your height (mine is 6ft 2ins. Don't ask me what that is in metric.) and my waist is 107 c.m. (don't know what that is in inches.) I know it needs to be lower but as we do swimming and I'm about to buy a bicycle then I can safely say I do some form of physical exercise.
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