Today I’d like to talk about the best thing that ever happened to me, my husband Robin. I won’t make you feel uncomfortable with overly flowery expressions of how I feel for him, but know that my life has been infinitely better since he walked into it. But, like all situations where I find myself truly invested in the outcome of a relationship (or opportunity), I am left vulnerable, which can often lead to fear. At first my fear was based in insecurity. Hey, he travels for work to some very glamorous and far off places. That kind of regular separation can wreck havoc on someone’s mind. I eventually got over it but fear of the unknown can be a terrible thing.
Turns out, fear of the known can be even worse. Robin is a volunteer fire fighter for our community. I know right? Suspenders and stuff…Wait…what? Sorry, I’ll focus. He also turned 40 this year. We all know that this is a pivotal year for men when it comes time for their physical examinations, and it’s, ahem, cough, a little uncomfortable for them. The results of his physical were somewhat unnerving. His cholesterol was dangerously high. He had gained some weight over the time we were married and it was collecting in his abdomen, the danger zone for weight-related cardiovascular problems. He has a high stress job; the travel schedule alone can be grueling and is not conducive to proper sleep patterns. He is a smoker. And to top it off, he has a great deal of family history of heart disease. All those risk factors, coupled with the fact that twice this year while putting out fires he had what he calls a “complete power down”, his doctor was concerned about the picture that was being painted.
And so was I. Remember when I talked about fear up there? Even though we have been together six years I’m still vulnerable loving him; I’ve just changed the focus of my fear. The escalation of his testing has been going on for about a month and he’s been in Calgary this week for three different appointments to test various functioning of his heart. He is officially at high risk for cardiovascular disease and the doctors are taking it very seriously. The good news is that since I have been making major changes to our diets since May he has made significant improvements: his bad cholesterol has been cut in half, and we will find out next week if we managed to cut that number in half again so he can avoid medication. He’s also lost 20lbs, and considering he still eats a lot of the things that I have cut from my own diet that is fairly annoying. HA. But such is the difference of male and female physiology and probably a different entry altogether! The fact that I’ve been able to impact those numbers by diet alone is just another example of food being medicine. Powerful stuff!
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