My younger sister, Kara, recently had her yearly check-up, and the doctor told her she should have her cholesterol checked, now that she is 20. Kara is a super-trim, dancer, runner, toothpick, so we were all shocked to find out that the results showed her cholesterol at 262! That's higher than my step-dad's was before he started on Lipitor! When I had my cholesterol checked, it was 154, and Kara eats much healthier than I do... which means it has to be heredity...
While my maternal grandfather does have high cholesterol, I would peg my dad's side as being the more likely line of transport, seeing as all of my paternal grandfather's brothers died of first-time, massive heart attacks in their late forties! My grandfather lived to be in his late seventies, before passing away due to complications from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, but he did have angioplasty...
So, considering my dad's unhealthy lifestyle, I approached the subject of cholesterol when he called this past Sunday. I asked him when he last had his cholesterol checked and he laughed that he didn't know because that would require going to a doctor. (He laughed because he is a surgical nurse who works with doctors every day and is even planning a mission trip to Kosovo with several of them at the end of the month.)
Then I told him to be serious because heart disease runs in his family, he doesn't eat regular meals, the meals he does eat are not healthy ones, he doesn't have a regular sleep schedule, works extremely long hours at a stressful job, doesn't floss regularly, and carries all his extra weight in his gut... all things that have been correlated with fatal heart complications... "You're asking for a heart attack!" I told him. "Well, you have to go some how!" he laughed... I told him, "Later is better than sooner..."
I'm not sure if he got the message, and I doubt he will make any lifestyle changes, which I find very disenheartening because there was a long time when I probably wouldn't have been overly upset to lose him because I was so angry with him for destroying our family... Now that we have actually been working on reconciling our relationship, and I am to the point where I actually like him (I've always loved him... liking was a bit more difficult...) I have concerns about him not being around... All this stress is going to give me a heart attack!...
