Good Call

No blood result today - well, not exactly anyway. Some might say the whole day has revolved around a blood result, but more of that in a minute. Basically, was out the door this morning before the birds were awake, so no real time to bleed.

The UberCommute was fine, although I had the same grumpy-assed driver as a few weeks ago, when he dropped us all unceremoniously at Heathrow. Today, I can only presume he must have got some last night, as he drove into London sweet as a nut, dropping me in Hammersmith. Just before we arrived though, I got a call.

It was my doctor's surgery. I swallowed.
"Hello," said, all trepidation and whispering - the grumpy sod had told us to keep our mobile conversations short and quiet if they happened at all, so as not to annoy him.
"Hello Anthony," said a vaguely familiar voice. It was the Diabetic Nurse d and I had been to see last week. "About your results, it is," she said, in that perverse Yoda-style delivery peculiar to the Valleys.
"Oh yes?" I asked, steeling myself. Can't be good when your nurse rings you to talk about your results...surely?
"Lovely, they were," she said. "Your long-term diabetic control is really excellent. Wondered if you'd like to stop taking one of your medications all together..."

What? Are you freakin' nuts? OF COURSE I'd like to do that!

So, as of today, I've eliminated one of my diabetic meds - the same one I've been gradually reducing over time - from four pills a day when this began to now...none. Zero. To anyone who knows what's what, I am now a Gliclazide-free body. So - mini happy dances were done on the bus coming into Hammersmith.

Of course, these things are always conditional - gotta go back for another long-term diabetic control blood test in a couple of months, to see whether my system can, as yet, actually cope with none of this particular medication, and if it can't of course, I'll go back on it. But hey - that'll be the headline on that day. Today's headline - half of what I really wanted to achieve with this Disappearing programme has been accomplished - I'm on only one diabetic medication, instead of two. Next step is to prove I can do without it, and then, as we keep on reducing the weight, to attack my dependence on the other of the other medication I take. big milestone though, this - this Disappearing lark was never really about looking thin. It was about not dying quite yet, and it was about the tantalising prospect dangled before me by my doctor back in Stratford - that if I got down to something like 11 stone, I could actually cure myself of my diabetes. Who knows? This might be a short-lived little happy dance, but today who-ah, I rule all, mini-wave in celebration of kicking one medication to the curb!

Tomorrow of course it's weigh-in day. I'm hopeful and optimistic, and will try my very best not to be pathetic and whingy if I don't get the result I'm looking for. And then it's back to the work-from-home routine - Gym taster at lunchtime. Some time this week, I need to buy new Favourite Goggles and get back to the upper-body-building funfest of early morning swimming...Ah, the joy of routine. Still - there's joy today in eliminating one little chunk of a routine that's been in place for a good few years now. Stick with me folks, this next month could be interesting...