'Tis the season for giving...

Blood that is.

In preperation for his surgery on the 12th, Janine and I had to donate blood in case Zach has a need for it.

Now, due to a rather unfortunate incident involving a lady at the Red Cross donation center that I still to this day refer to as "Nurse Pincushion", I have not donated blood since I was about 20 years old.

I got some giggles from the questionaire I had to fill out before making the donation. One of the questions asked if I had ever or had "sexual contact" with someone who took money, drugs or other payment for sex since 1977. Now, I'm pretty sure on the money and drugs thing - the thought that I am talented enough in that field to actually get paid for it is quite laughable come to think of it. Since I've been married for quite some time, I've never had a need to pay for sex. (Beg for it perhaps...)

Still though there is that "other payment" issue.... Does that mean if a guy takes a girl out on a date to a nice resturant and they end up doing the deed later on that evening? Or is that not "payment". These are the things that go through my head while I'm sitting there waiting on the nurse to enter my information into her computer. Obviously there are more pressing issues I should be spending my time thinking about, but that's just how my mind works.

As part of the whole donation routine, they give you a "mini-physical" of sorts. My blood pressure was 126/84. Not great, not horrible. Actually, it's usually at least 10 points lower than that, so I'm not really concerned. Pulse was 62 which I'm quite pleased with. It was closer to 90 before I started on the exercise bike.

When you donate blood, they also test your cholesterol level. I had to log in to the blood center website to get those results a couple of days ago. Considering that I'm not known for my healthy eating habits (Damn pizza - why can't I quit you!), I wasn't really looking forward to these results. I was expecting a number in the mid 200's. Enough to send me off to Lipitor land. I was actually paranoid enough about it to look up some of the anti-cholesterol drugs out there.

Did you know Lipitor has "accidental injury" listed as a side effect? As in "People who take this drug are at a higher risk of getting hit by a bus". I'm not sure how they measure that, but it's good to know. Crestor does not list "accidental injury" as a side effect, so that's obviously the one to go with. I'm an expert on "accidental injuries", I don't need any help in that department.

So, imagine my surprise when I logged in and found that my cholesterol is only 182. Safely in the good range. I'll chalk it up to genetics. I didn't get a good/bad level breakdown, but overall it's not that bad.

So on to the bad news...

Due to Zach's surgery, we have decided not to run the half-marathon on the 25th. There are just too many unknowns at this point to allow us to really dedicate the time needed to the race. We'll revisit the idea for next year. However, we have decided to enter into a few of the local 5K events. It's a long story, but Josh actually jogged over 5K on concrete, wearing baseball cleats after a 2 hour practice in about 30 minutes. Given ideal conditions I think he could probably shave close to 10 minutes off that time. We'll have to see how it goes.

I'll update on Zach's surgery as things progress.