Dr Office Visit

Went to my regular Dr office as followup to hospital visit.  Actually, I saw a physician assistant (PA) hereafter).  I have good vital signs!  Blood Pressure 150/65 (the 150 is a little high, but she allowed for the exertion using the walker for 2 weeks).   Pulse was 66.  Oxygen level was 98% (fantastic for a 50 year smoker)!  And to think the primary care Dr suggested I might have COPD in 2018.  Temp is a perfect 98.6.  

Turned out they WOULDN'T approve a Percoset refill.  I told her my last pill had been Thursday and I felt just fine mentally (as in no withdrawal sensations) but they are being cautious and I understand that).  But she understood I WAS in some pain, so I got a prescription for traMADOL (an opiate) and 600 mg ibuprophen.  Grand total cost 49 cents.  WOW!

I researched traMADOL (that's how it is printed on the bottle).  It seems more addictive and dangerous than Percoset!  Well, they only gave me 9 pills.  What bad can happen?

It was funny when she asked my age.  When I said 70, she looked at me carefully and asked me to confirm it.   Yeah, I'm one of THOSE PEOPLE.  I often get carded when I request a senior discount, LOL!  Fair is fair, though.  I sufferred as a teen by looking 14 when I went to college.  Just TRY to date a college woman when you look like you're in 10th grade...  Liquor store guys would study my drivers license to see how I had faked it. 

I ordered a flat tray with raised edges for carrying food to the TV room on the walker (I have a basket but it only fits small bowls) and 2 precut tennis balls to fit the non wheel legs.

I'm actually having a harder time getting around now than 2 days ago.  Apparently, I've pulled a groin muscle.   THAT stings a bit.  The ibuprophen helps and I start the opiate tomorrow.  But I need to favor the right leg for a few days.

BTW, both Deb and John tested positive for Covid-19 last Summer.  Several negative tests since then.  She sanatizered me and had me wear gloves in her car and the Dr office.  Even so, she said she wouldn't go in the Dr office waiting area, and then did anyway.  She did all the paperwork and got the prescriptions afterwards (there is a pharmacy right there in the Medical Bldg).  She is a take-charge person!

When she got me home, she insisted I do a complete change of clothes and put that set into a separate plastic bag (from which she will dump untouched from the bag into the washer for safety).  She is a self-proclaimed "cleanliness fanatic".  My house must look like a horror show to her.  Let's just say I am a "rather careless housekeeper". It just doesn't bother me.  I grew up playing in dirt and creek water, and my adult hobbies usually have me in dirt.  The PA was surprised at my lack of adult health problems (I never catch colds or flu.  I've read health articles about that, though.  Moderate exposure to "the natural world" tends to provide lifelong health benefits.  :)

She loves the truffle sample box I gave her.  Says she never guessed there were so many flavors.  Pumpkin, spice, mint, sea salt, etc.  I have simple tastes in chocolate:  White and Extra Dark!  So, I know what to do with the sample box (basically 2 or 3 of every flavor Lindor sells) that will come with my next White and Extra Dark order I place (I order a 150 piece box of each about once per year).

That will be a few months from now, so I am planning "innocent thanks" flowers next week and prime steaks when I can shop for myself again.  And some fresh garden produce in Summer.  Not many people are familiar with flat Italian green beans, and apparently, she has never had an heirloom tomato.  Hmm, a loaf of my home baked bread next week, too.  I use beer instead of water for more depth of flavor, and add dried minced onion, crushed garlic and oregano.  Really makes a difference.  I LOVE my bread machine!

Other than that, it is "same old, same old".  Wait and heal, wait and heal...

Ancestry

I got one of those DNA testing kits in November and sent the cheek swab off.   I learned the results today.

Before I mention the results, let me say I only did it on a lark to see if something really odd showed up.  My mother's side of the family is French, through Quebecois Canada for a couple centuries at least.  Her dad's side was from Southern France and her Mom's was Parisian (family lore).   No formal genealogy, but I had great-Aunts who only spoke Canadian French, so that seems solid.

Dad's side of the family is claimed English and German.  His dad's side supposedly was traced back to England in the 1600s (by last name only), but all I can find is back to the mid-1700s in the US.  His moms's side was Pennsylvannia Dutch (German), records fading out in the mid 1800s (looking back though time).  The family name seems to have come from a Norman word for "pantry server" (dispenser).  That would have been a castle position of English kitchen-workers, possibly a high point in the lineage of general serfs.  (I think that meant the equivalent of controlling the office supply cabinet).

Dad and then I did some research a decade ago, and all that seemed solid.  So, I thought maybe some Canadian Indian (not all that uncommon in Canada, all those French Trappers wandering the wilds).  And possibly Dad's English ancestors included some Norman French (Vikings who settled in NW France) and/or even direct Vikings who settled in England.  It's not like my ancestors seemed to be world travelers.  Indeed, our family history seemed to be a rather boring line of farmers and small-time merchants.

And I look so much like Dad that his friends used to wave at me as they drove by while I was mowing the lawn as a young adult, thinking I was him.  And Dad was similarly like HIS dad.  No concerns there.  

I should also mention that I am self-taught knowledgeable in evolution and genetics.  I know basically how DNA works.  I also know that (like in cats and dogs) a variety of genetic mixing makes for a healthy individual.  And I haven't caught the flu since I was 12, never catch a cold, and I am a cash cow to my health insurance company. 

So I expected DNA ethnicity results something like 45%+ English, 45%+ French, and perhaps 1 or 2% of American Indian and/or Scandinavian.  Guess what MyHeritage.com says I'm NOT?  ENGLISH!  Not a drop...

I had to laugh out loud! They say I am 43.2% French/German/Netherlands, 36.7% Irish/Scottish/Welsh, 13.5% Balkan, 5.0% Iberian (Spanish/Portuguese), and 1.6% Middle Eastern!

If I understand this correctly, it means my ancestry is 43% non-Norman French and German, 37% pre-Anglo-Saxon native groups (Celts), some wandering Balkan traders who inter-married in either France/Germany/England, some poor lost Spaniard, and maybe some Arab.

I see a family of Welsh or Scots (not Irish - no red hair in our family) living under Anglo-Saxon, then Norman viking rule in England, leaving Great Britain in the 1700s on paternal side.  And some French moving to Canada in the 1700s on the maternal side and moving to the New England US to work in the textile mills around 1920.  Somewhere around 1930, Dad's grandparents moved from  Ohio to New Hampshire

I think this is GREAT!  Maybe the most "interesting" $69 I ever spent.  ASSUMING that the DNA tests are actually accurate...  I may try to learn more about that.

I have to add a disclaimer though.  Humans have about 30,000 genes and the ancestry tests choose which ones they think most useful in determining ethnicity.  And I know from my own interest in the subject that some genes persist from VERY long times ago.

For example, I may have a gene string that randomly persisted from some Middle East ancestor 10,000 years ago.  My ancestors may have lost some critical gene string that shows English ancestry. 

But I'll bet not.  It seems I'm not genetically English at all.  WOW!  I'm going to repeat the test with a different company and see if the results differ (after checking the internet to see if they do independent lab work.

Have any of you had this kind of test done?  Did you think the results agreed with family history?  Did you get surprises?

Officially Old

I had another "I'm Officially Old" event today.  I got my shingles shot...

I had been thinking of it for a few years, but I figured I would have it when I visited my regular Dr for an annual physical.  Only I keep not doing that.  The Dr I last visited left the area and I just keep not finding another.

Part of the problem is that I am, as my friends say, "disgustingly healthy".  I haven't had a cold or flu since I was 12.  And even then, while my brother lay sounding like he was dying of flu, I was only mildly annoyed.  I even had to heat the thermometer over the heat vent to get it high enough to stay out of school an extra day.

I only got my first flu shot when Dad was living here in 2012 because I read that you can be infected but not show signs of it yourself, but can infect other, and I didn'r want to kill Dad inadvertantly, so I got a flu shot.

I got it at the local grocery store.  The shot was so good I couldn't even tell he had done it without looking.  The same in Dec 2013.  Dad had moved to an assisted-living facility by then, but I decided I should probably get the annual flu shot for the safety of others. 

So I got the flu shot again this year and probably will each year for the rest of my life.  Not so much for me, but in case I can carry it without symptoms, getting the shot seems socially responsible. 

No pain, $30, no big deal and I get a 10% off coupon for the days shopping.

This year, I got the shingles shot.  Its not covered by my (or darn near any)insurance, but it seems to be something that attacks 1 of 3 people my age who had chicken pox as a child (and I did).  Mom had it and it drove her crazy for weeks several times.  So I sure didn't want to go through that.

I actually felt the shot!  The previous flu shots were nearly undetectable, but I felt the shingles one.  The Pharmacist said it the larger amount of injection.  Well, 1 second of mild "ouch" isn't much to complain about.  It was just that I was surprized.

The Pharmacist insisted on putting bandages over the injection sites "because they bleed.  I told him not to bother because I heal oddly fast.  But he had to according to "the rules".  I took them of as soon as I got home and there wasn't the least drop of blood on them.

They never believe me about not bleeding, but I don't fight about it.  If it makes them happy to put a bandage on, fine.

I probably don't need the flu or shingles shots for myself.  They are both viruses and I seem to be immune to viral  infections and colds.  Maybe I should contact a testing experiment.  I suspect that because I spent 30 years in carpools with young mothers who both had sick kids AND went to work when they were sick themselves. 

If I can't get sick around sick carpool members an hour each way in an enclosed car while the sneeze  (and sometimes did worse), I probably can't get sick.

Not to say something new coming along wouldn't kill me next month...

I think it is genetics.  Ancestors from all over Europe, into North America  (Canada and US and likely some Native American).  Wish I had a bit of Asian ancestry too.  Viruses aren't going to kill me; smoking will...

Bet I catch something awful just because I've mentioned all this...