Good day or night, my friends. Today I’ve got some updates of the medical/health variety. (Greetings and gratitude to you who’ve been asking in the after-aftermath of my minor hand surgery!)
It was last week when I went to the VA for a couple of appointments. The first was to Ortho to have my stitches removed. My hand was sprayed with a freezing liquid to numb the area and while that probably helped a lot it still hurt like a mofo when the stitches were removed, but it went superfast. I’m supposed to continue avoiding lifting, pushing, and pulling more than five pounds with that hand for an additional two weeks.
Then I went upstairs to my next appointment – the Endocrinologist – and came out with the best doctor’s orders I ever received, or ever heard of anyone receiving: Eat more salt.
The Endocrinologists are thinking that my hyponatremia (low blood sodium) is due to a combination of Sjögren’s Syndrome-related dry mouth, which can cause excessive thirst, and a possible side effect of one of my psych meds. They’re looking into modifications that can be made to those treatment plans to get my thirst under control. Until then, eat more salt.
So I did what any good patient would do: I immediately went to the Patriot Store on the other end of the hospital, where I picked up a bag of peanuts coated with Tajín Clásico seasoning (chili peppers, sea salt, citric acid, dehydrated lime juice). 360 mgs of sodium in a 1/4 cup serving size. Doctor’s orders!
They can take their time figuring out my new treatment plan, as far as I’m concerned.
I’ve always been more of a salt person than a sugar person. The amount of salt I normally consume is already considered to be “too much” by traditional standards, so in order to eat more, I’m counting my sodium intake. Here’s what I’ve eaten today so far:
The sodium is in the multigrain pita chips, sea salt Popchips, Tajín Clásico peanuts, hummus, and pickles. A friend at work suggested the Popchips because they’re ridiculously salty, he said. They’re not bad. They’re not saltier by my normal definition of salty, but they’re pretty good little vehicles for salt, which is all white potatoes are to me, anyway.
Meanwhile, as I wait for the all-clear to work out again, I’m feeling myself melt uncomfortably into a shapeless puddle of wasted energy, consumed calories roaming in my body all dressed up with nowhere to go. For some mysterious reason,* the doctor doesn’t even want me doing Body Combat (cardio kickboxing/fight training) for another two weeks. I’m sitting on my desk chair with that sensation of my ass spreading over it, as one does when sedentary. I remember this feeling from my office-job days. Is this it for me for the rest of my life? Is this going to be my day-to-day until I depart this Earth? At the job I have now I take more than 10K steps every day, Monday-Friday. I am blessed.
End of updates, and this should do it with mundane medical happenings for a while. I’m looking forward to coming back with another home workout post. You who’ve jumped here from my Funk Roberts MMA workout post: I see you. Thank you for being here despite my scant offering of workout posts!
Have a wonderful rest of your day or night, my friends. Until mid-week, then!
[ETA: Just looked out at my front yard and remembered that I have to get out there to pull the roughly 20 million weeds that’ve sprung up out of nowhere. I suppose that’ll be a decent stand-in workout.]
*Okay, maybe not so mysterious. When I told him that the Body Combat workouts include things like push-ups, burpees, sprawls, and mountain-climbers, he said don’t do those things, and I stupidly said that it would be hard to not do them.
That Asian-Looking Chick 