From one doctor to another

"I wish all my patients were doing as well as you."

That was my doctor's assessment this morning at my diabetes follow-up appointment. It's been almost exactly a year since I was first diagnosed with Type II diabetes, and, in the short term, it would appear to be one of the best things that's happened to me health-wise. :) Obviously the potential for complications down the road is probably something that I'll always need to be wary of, but for now, things are good. In the last year, I've lost about 45 pounds, lowered my HbA1c (an aggregate measure of average blood sugar over the previous several months) from 7.5 to 5.9 (up a smidge from the 5.8 it was last time, but certainly still very good), and in the last 4 months since starting to take a super-cheap generic statin, my cholesterol has dropped dramatically from 188 to 128, while at the same time my good cholesterol (HDL) has gone up a tad.

Coupled with so many other great things going on in my life, I continue to feel really blessed.