SOME HEALTH UPDATES

I have been seeing a renal specialist lately for some baseline tests on my one and only kidney. Good news is that my one kidney is working fine, except –

(There is always an except, isn’t there? Doctors would not exist but for the “excepts”…)

1) There is some blood in my urine (has been for some time).

2) I have low levels of blood albumin.

According to the specialist, the first happens to some people sometimes, and there is nothing he or I can do about it. The bad news is that my insurance company has rejected a recent insurance proposal for this very reason. And it looks like there is nothing I can do about it.

Moral of the story: Go and get some medical insurance coverage when you are young and healthy. This should be the top priority after securing your first job. I thought I was invincible and wouldn’t need it – I was wrong.

The low blood albumin is puzzling. According to my own research, it could either be due to a) malnuitrition (me? Really?), b) liver diseases (uh-oh), c) kidney diseases (uh-uh-uh-oh) or d) it is just one of those things. On the kidney front I am cool, and I don’t appear jaundiced, so liver problems are unlikely. I could be malnutritioned of course, but it doesn’t seem to have done me a lot of good on the weight loss front if that’s the case, so the doctor thinks it might be “just one of those things”.

To be on the safe side, if my albumin levels are still low next time I see him (a year later!), he will send me to a gastro-specialist to check my liver. Since it was a gastro specialist who discovered my single kidney (and sent me to him) and tumour situation in the first place, I would have come full circle!

Back to square one after all these $$$ spent.

The ultrasounds last month has revealed some small growths in my left ovary. While they are too small to be of concern right now, I feel kind of suspended in limbo, wondering if this is a sign that “IT is all coming back to me now”. I wonder also if this is how people feel when they are in cancer remission, the fear that it might come back someday will always haunt one.

I am somewhat glad that children are not in my plans. With my crummy family health history and apparently crummy genes, I don’t think it will be a good idea anyway.

By the way, it really bugs me to visit SGH. It feels like the entire sick senior population in Singapore is congregated there, and it really disturbs me to see them, and be reminded that the day may come when I will be one of them, unable to walk properly, speak intelligibly, see and hear clearly.

Aging is scary, aging with ill health is worse.