So I’m doing a check up on a patient, and the mom asks me, “How’s your cholesterol doing?”

I’m like, “My cholesterol? Oh ya. Well, I haven’t checked it in a while (a while being 3 years).”

For those of you who don’t remember, or never knew in the first place, four years ago I wrote about my high cholesterol of 257 in Dr. Bob's Cholesterol Story. I had managed to get it down to a very respectable 177 after some rigorous nutritional changes. But since then, I’d never checked it.

Not very doctor-ish of me. Or maybe it is. Us doctors are invincible to all diseases, right?

So I figured I’d check it again. I didn’t go on a crash diet or eat zero fat for a few days first. I just grabbed our office cholesterol machine and took it home to do a fasting cholesterol the next morning.

I wake up, get the machine ready, and prick my finger. No blood. Then I realize it’s freezing cold in the house and my hand’s like ice. Dang. That was the only finger prick thing that I’d brought home. I guessed I’d have to wait until tomorrow. But no. If I waited, I’d just end up putting it off for another few years.

So I go to the hospital to see a newborn baby, and on my way out I snag one of those sharp pricking things they use to get blood out of a newborn’s heel.

I go home, warm up my finger in hot water (smart, huh?), and prick my finger. Plenty of blood flow this time. In fact, it wouldn’t stop bleeding. I look at my finger, expecting to see a tiny little hole, and there’s like a huge laceration. No wonder I’m bleeding. That’s what we do to every newborn? No wonder they cry.

I’m happy to report that my cholesterol was a very nice 183. Thanks for caring, whoever that patient was. Ask me again in a year, and every year after that. No wait, not everybody, just whoever that one person was. Ask me every year just before Thanksgiving. That way I can make sure it’s staying normal.

Dr. Bob