SHERINGHAM DIARY No 90 - And The Hips Don't Lie

There are times that are a wake up call. Moments when what you were once blithely oblivious to, is now revealed to you in full colour - Oh, yes, its there, there it is. 

After much prompting from Hubby I booked myself in to have my hearing tested. And whilst there I thought, well, let's have a general Health Check Up while we are at it. And so I was measured, weighed, blood pressure checked, blood was sampled and tested for diabetes and cholesterol.

Somethings were fine. Blood pressure was good. No sign of diabetes. Breathing a sigh of relief that I had yet to inherit the latter from the matriarch of my family. Apparently at sometime over the last few decades or so I've also lost two inches in height. As my general body mass began to slump under gravitational pressure. 

Otherwise, generally a bit overweight and cholesterol too high. They flung around percentages like  22% more likely to have a heart attack in the next ten years. Whether that was meant to be alarming or reassuring was, and still is, unclear. They also recommend statins like they've heavily invested in pharmaceutical shares in a new wonder drug.

My knee jerk response was no. I don't want to end up rattling with a vast array of assorted pills like my Mother was. Statins have a bit of a muddied reputation, with some rare, but nevertheless. non too pleasant side effects. But generally are thought to be better than doing without these days. So I may be returning to that once I've calmed my over reaction down a bit. In the meantime I've got a diet to reconfigure.

That I've been overweight for some time, this was not news. Its the plague of the Lumbs, not to be able to turn down a cake or desert when offered one. I've been on and off a diet for years. At my age losing weight is a slow indefatigable process, and entails a very very long term strategy. It doesn't just fall off the moment I say no to cheese. Each time I get fed up with dieting, I end up trying to pretend a date slice has magically become one of my five a day. This never works. Cakes and pastries do nothing but rest like dough on my hips. And, as Shakira says, the hips don't lie.

As ever its a question of getting the balance right. Not cake everyday, and certainly not more than once a day, limited to a couple of times a week is probably better. The latest tactic is to only buy one cake to have with coffee and share between Hubby and I. Literally halving my complex carbohydrate consumption in one self satisfied cut of the knife. Now that wasn't at all hard was it?

The hearing test was on the NHS, but done through Specsavers. All the techy listening and button pressing in a sound cubicle, was quite fun. Producing these tell tale audio graphs showing the descent of high register sounds beneath the horizon of my ears to capture. It's the standard age related hearing decline, so nothing at all to write home about. Just another sign that my body is failing to maintain standards. But the hearing aids they cost me nowt. Hurrah for the NHS!  My being able to hear well is a valuable thing to preserve, to sustain my quality of life. I feel treasured.

I am now the proud owner of two champagne gold coloured 'crustaceans' that I assemble around my ears like jewellery every morning. Still a bit discomforting and itchy, but that's getting easier with each day. I don't have to ask Hubby to repeat himself because I missed, or only half heard, the subject or objective of a sentence. Its not about focus or attention, more the type of high register sounding consonants, where the beginnings and ends of sentences were missing.  Like everything it won't be long before being slightly deaf becomes second nature.

Crustaceans at rest