Tuesday night (on a medical note)

Had my doctor's appointment at the end of the day to go over results of blood work. I'm relieved to say everything is normal, as it has been lately (despite all the upheaval around here). Today he wanted to print out the results so I could take them with me. Perhaps he was feeling proud of his progress with me, as he should, or maybe it's because he saw me sitting there with a pen and paper. We went over the print-out together.

As he always reports, my cholesterol level is borderline high (this time 203) , but my good, HDL cholesterol is so high (this time 53) that it counteracts the "lethal" (as my doctor wrote on the report) LDL cholesterol (this time 93). So I guess I'll pretty much keep on eating what I'm eating.

The triglycerides were 285--high, but normal for not fasting before the test. My doctor doesn't routinely make us fast before getting blood drawn.

My blood pressure, by the way, was 155/79 (high normal, as usual). I can't stand the sensation of getting my blood pressure taken (which may skew the results). I do take a blood pressure pill--generic Norvasc--just the same. I find it interesting that when the generic came out, it was priced just as expensive on my insurance formulary as the brand-name had been (and which then shot up in price), so I didn't get a break on my insurance co-pays for that.

The drug companies in this country are basically gouging us nowadays for drugs that don't cost that much to produce, even considering the costs of research and development that go into them. They charge the most they think they can get away with, effectively telling the consumer that if you don't pay our price, then die. The drug companies actually spend more money on marketing than on research and development, and many of the most effective and useful drugs are developed with funding from the federal government (a good thing).

Even when Walgreen's came out with its generic Prilosec, it was priced higher (depending on the amount you were getting, and they made it confusing to make comparisons the way they packaged it) than the brand-name.