Whew! Yesterday was my thirty-eighth birthday and I have a lot of feelings. It’s really hitting me that I am turning forty soon. It seems

like it came so fast. It’s crazy. Time is moving on whether we like it or not. And well, you either get with it or you fade away. I’ve chosen to get with it. Yesterday, I went to my doctor for a checkup and to voice some concerns I was having about my health. We did the usual check in stuff, scale, concerns, and blood pressure… that’s it. The blood pressure stuff. Now, I don’t know if it was the coffee I’d had a few hours before or the stress I was feeling from a few things, but my blood pressure was up a lot. Not sending you to the emergency room for it, but enough for the NP to ask me with everything was ok and if I had been experiencing stress.

I knew for a while I needed to get things in order, but so much had been happening that I put things on the back burner. Last year, from July to January of this year, I was sick. A lot of the sickness came from the side effects of the medications I was taking to make me feel better. Thanks to that, I now know I am allergic to certain medications. Anyway, one of the big issues was my thyroids being inflamed because of the medication I was taking. Which got better within a month after discounted use. However, as we approach the summer months, I’m feeling like it may be flaring up again and I have no clue why. Which is the reason for my doctor’s visit. After hearing about the high amount of my blood pressure, I decided to discuss with the doctor some other concerns I had. I also have PCOS, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which is a condition that affects your hormones, insulin levels, etc. This is something I’ve been dealing with since I was in my twenties. At one point, I didn’t have a period for a year. I had to take birth control pills to bring it back. Once I lost a bit of weight, I was able to be regular again and discontinued the birth control usage. Since I’m older and starting to deal with some other PCOS symptoms, I asked about checking for those things as well. So, I’ll be getting blood work done for a few things next month.

However, I need to get more serious about my health. I need to start walking more. I used to walk a lot back in 2020-2021 because I was laid off and had time. I managed to lose about twenty or so pounds doing it but, since I started working again on top of working from home, I don’t do much exercise. But that’s definitely going to change, especially since I have a family history of heart conditions and diabetes. My father called me earlier in the day and he was talking about how his cholesterol and blood pressure were up so, he was doing more exercise to get it back to healthy levels. That’s not something I want to deal with as I get older. I want to be able to live a healthy and joyful life.

My goal is not to be skinny. I know I won’t ever be skinny, nor do I want to be. However, my goal is to be healthier and to really combat some of these PCOS symptoms. To my knowledge, PCOS never goes away, but it can be contained and go dormant. Realistically, I would like to lose forty to fifty pounds, which would have me hovering around the 200lbs range. I’m a tall girl, I can hold it.