DAY 3: BLOOD TESTS

March 12, 2022 ~ Saturday

The rooms are plain, white, and part of a suite of rooms. I am in a 3 bedroom suite with a shared bathroom. The outer door of the suite opens into the shared living room where there is a communal tv, couch, a lounger, and a table with chairs. The building used to be an apartment complex, so it also has a full kitchen that is never used. The only thing in the kitchen is distilled water for fasting patients. Patients have a choice of drinking it at room temperature, or cold, or hot and NO food is allowed in the fridge from those who are eating.

I have not yet started to fast as the doctor wants to ease me into fasting so we can keep track of the muscle pain. He wants me off of most of the medication and to have experienced the food served here. Then I move to a juice fast.

Per every morning, my berries arrive and then the nurse arrives for rounds. Today, Dr. Streutker arrived. He had my blood test results from the draw the day before. It has been nearly two months since my numbers were checked back in Vermont. That is two months of eating this type of diet about 90% of the way. So these new numbers were better! Glucose 94. Cholesterol 204. That is 4 points away from being in the normal range! Triglycerides 130 which is in the normal range. My liver numbers are not perfect and fasting is expected to heal the liver. And the ever present CPK, a marker for muscle break down, has been slightly elevated for years and nothing I have done up to now has change this number. Even this diet has not affected it. So, the doctor is puzzled by it.

At TN there are all kinds of other services to try. They do cost extra and for some my insurance company will reimburse most of the cost. So today, I had my first chiropractic appointment. It went well except the pressure of pushing something back into place, popped something in my left arm which had nothing wrong with it … until now. I can barely move it. I am sure it will be alright in a day or two. I told Dr. Streutker about this and we will assess it tomorrow. He gave me some ibuprofen and I will apply ice and heat alternately.