Half Life at 70

A little pre-birthday scare yesterday with a trip to the hospital. All ok, but after a weekend of sketchy movement and fluid loss I thought I should call. I'm at 28 weeks so they brought me in for a NST. No go for finding the heartbeat at the OB so they sent me over to the hospital. Since I had to do the repeat glucose test later this week I went in fasting hoping to knock it out too. BAD idea, resulting in my blacking out while they were trying to get the monitor on me. All ok once I ate something but I think Ben was a bit freaked out. They decided to have me come back with instructions to eat something low sugar instead of straight out fasting

Once at the hospital they hooked me up and despite Ben trying to put stickers on me while I was laying there and then attempted to get in the bed with me. He was very scared of the heartbeat and movement noices and covered his ears. Luckily after a 30 min run they let me go with a blessing of a healthy baby, wild 3.5 year old bribed with goldfish, and instructions to try and rest and to eat as an 11 lb weight gain to date was on the low side.

Happy Early Birthday to me and in light of all the destruction in Haiti, so pales in comparison. This 35th birthday post is over least 10 years in the making. It wasn't until I heard piece on This American Life that I even really thought that wow, that SO is exactly how I feel about getting older and the very real odds for long term illness.

Moving into this age bracket of 35-39 means really one thing to me: last ditch chance to stave off the same early 40s diabetes diagnosis that both my parents had. In my immediate family no one with the exception of one grandfather lived to be older than 70. Most died in their early 60s or even mid 50s of diabetes complications, cancer, heart disease, even a small town scandal worthy murder-suicide a decade ago. This was my catalyst for even doing weight loss surgery 5 years ago and why Bill decision to do it too was one of the best gifts of time that he could ever give our family.

Personally I see it as paramount that loose the weight I have put back on and do everything in my power to make the next 5 years as healthy as I can. With kids that will be younger than my brother and I were at my parents at age 40 I owe it to them to not have to play parent to me when they are teenagers.

So as much as I really hate this birthday and what it symbolizes, it's also a chance to not follow down the same path and to live for my kids and my family more than for only myself.

Happy Birthday to Me and to more importantly my family today-