When coming up on a milestone birthday in the past there was usually not much out of the ordinary to report. Not this year for me. So although I have not provided many personal updates, maybe now is a good time for a quick summary of what has turned into an interesting year.
Let’s start with the lead-in photograph, which is a selfie of my right forearm being prepped for skin-cancer surgery. Very interesting to be able to sit there and watch the doc skin me alive. Gowned and observing a surgical procedure is one thing, but when I am the one going under the knife, quite another. It was very early stage cancer, she took plenty of extra area skin from around the nasty spot and the post-surgical check of what was removed tested clear on the edges. excellent!
So now I put on sun-screen each morning and my first three-month follow-up found nothing new. That of course did not stop her from hitting a few extra spots with the Liquid Nitrogen. ouch.
Second was finding out that going gluten-free might have a positive effect on my mild psoriasis skin condition. And fortunately it appears that it does for me. As a scientist I have been working on some potential chemicals that might help psoriasis, one of which has been helping me, but there were still a couple of stubborn spots, like on my elbows. So about four weeks since going gluten-free and these stubborn psoriasis spots have almost entire healed up and are looking mighty fine.
Also finding out that going protein-style (lettuce wrap) at In-n-Out for my double-double, extra pickles, tastes very yummy. Since my others in my family have been gluten-free for many years, and now how many good alt-gluten-free food is available, going gluten-free is not as bad as I would have thought some years ago (when I should have tried it then).
Third was recently discovering that I was having a little bit of something else going on. This particular problem has probably been plaguing me for most of my life. What I had thought was “nervous energy” was a bit more sinister than that. The good news is that recognizing what’s going on and then proactively figuring out what might be bugging me (& realizing that there is nothing to fear) has done wonders in reducing my blood pressure; dropped 30 points in the Systolic and 10 points in the Diastolic (at rest) pressure since the last time I monitored it 4 months ago. wow.
A nice way to start the new “age” & maybe I will make it to another milestone birthday. Especially since I have a few more artistic projects in the works.
Cheers!
Featured photograph, above; Surgical Selfie copyright 2019 Douglas Stockdale
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