Physicals, Photobucket, and Psychology

First of all, you may have noticed the latest addition to my blog - the photo montages in the left sidebar. I finally created a photobucket account to which I can upload my photos. It allows me to create these photo stamps and insert them into my blog. Pretty cool. The photos I have uploaded at present are just a few from a trip we took last spring to Seattle and Victoria, BC. I have some amazing photos of Butchart Gardens that I will be uploading in the next few days. What an amazing place that is. You'll have to be sure to look at the pictures once I get them online. Not that my photographic skills are anything to brag about, but honestly, it's almost impossible to take a bad photo at Butchart Gardens. If the shot is in focus, you will have a stunning photo. It is just that amazing there.

Secondly, I had a physical Monday morning. The head-to-toe, blood drawing, peeing-in-a-cup, EKG taking kind. I haven't had one like that in ages. When I took my son in to have an ingrown toenail cut out, the doctor looked at me and said "are you okay? You don't look well." Gee, thanks doc. This is a guy I've known for over 10 years, but he hasn't seen me in at least two years, so I think the weight gain and the bad hair day I was having (see below) surprised him. Last time he saw me, I was working out regularly, I was about 30 pounds lighter, and probably having a good hair day. Anyway, his comment pushed me to say "okay, I'll come in for a physical". They had an opening Monday, so I went in!

The results of the physical are that, overall, I'm a very healthy person. I am waiting to hear the results of the blood tests, which I should get this morning. The doctor actually called me Tuesday with the results, but I was in a meeting, and when I could call him back, he was gone for the day. So, today I will find out if my thyroid is a bit on the underactive side, which I suspect. I know my cholesterol levels will be higher than optimal. That's a family thing. We make a lot of cholesterol, so mine is always around 200, but my rations of HDL to LDL are always good, so docs haven't been concerned in the past. Three years ago, though, my cholesterol was 228 and my ratios weren't so perfect. Since I've gained weight since then, I am expecting them to be even less wonderful. I did recently read, though, that high cholesterol is often a sign of an improperly functioning thyroid, so if the doc fixes my thyroid levels, my cholesterol levels should improve as well. My little sister was put in thyroid a few months ago and said it made a big difference in how she feels. She's 5 years younger than I am, and we are very similar in body type, except I'm about 4 inches taller than she is. Neither of us has ever had a weight problem to speak of - sure, we've battled 10 or 15 pounds off and on as we've gotten older, but nothing major - so when we both started having trouble losing weight, and when I found myself gaining much too easily, it made sense that the thyroid might be a factor. I'm interested in hearing what the doc has to say.

Thirdly, I am in one of those "I hate my hair but don't know what to do with it" modes. It is amazing to me how a bad hair day can affect your entire mood. Last week we went to get our passports. That entailed having a picture taken. I was having the worst hair day ever. My photos looked sooooo terrible, mostly because my hair looked so bad. Okay, partly because I looked so bad too, but a lot because of my hair. Usually, I can blow my hair dry, not curl it or anything, and it looks pretty good. I'm lucky. I have great hair. I have hair women would kill to have. And usually I can "blow and go". The last haircut I got ruined that. Now, if I just blow it dry and don't do some curling, it looks awful. It is fly-away, frizzy in parts, and flat in other parts. It just looks hideous. I don't like having to curl it every day. I just don't have that kind of time, nor do I like spending that kind of time on my appearance on a daily basis. It's one thing to spend a lot of time making yourself beautiful for a special occasion, but daily? Not me. My routine, from showering to makeup to hair to dressing, generally takes 30 minutes. This new "do" adds about 15 more minutes, and it's making me aggravated. So, I decided to go back to my regular hairdresser and have her cut my hair back into the shorter style I had it in up until about a year ago. It's easy, attractive, stylish...everything a hairstyle should be. Then yesterday, I had a really good hair day. My hair, which is about shoulder length now, looked great. All of a sudden, my plan to cut it was in doubt. I can't decide now whether to go back to the shorter, easy, perky look, or stick with the longer, growing it out, needs to be curled at least a little but looks HOT when it is, look. Such a dilemma. I'm so glad I have such trivial things to worry about. Really, I can't help but ask myself "gina, what does it matter in the grand scheme of things?!" "Not a whit", is the answer, of course. And yet, hair, as Edy has discussed in her blog about her fight against cancer, has such a big psychological impact on us. Yesterday I caught the tail end of the Today show. They had all these people on the show who were cutting their hair for Locks of Love. One woman had not cut her hair in 42 years. She looked amazing after it was cut off and she got her new hairdo...much better than she did with 5 feet of hair...but she was almost hysterical when they did the cut. Hair... it plays such a part in our lives. Ask any bald guy. Ask anyone who has lost it due to chemo, or alopecia. Ask a child who has lost their hair for some health-related reason and who is mercilessly teased. That's what Locks of Love is all about. So, as stupid as it sounds to worry about a bad hair day or whether or not to get a new haircut, it does have an emotional and psychological impact on us. Hair... long beautiful hair, shining, gleaming, steaming, waxen, flaxen... heck, a whole musical was made about hair!