29. Twists

25 Feb 2020 – Tuesday

The Tianmen Mountain Road, Hunan, China. It has some of the most crazy twists on any road in the world. It is 11km long with 99 bends rising over 1200m. The World Wingsuit League held the first and second World Wingsuit Championships in Tianmen, but then a competitor died. So in 2016 they opened a glass skywalk – the “Coiling Dragon Cliff”.

Not quite as many twists yet, but one more to add to my collection. A few weeks back I had a blood test for kidney and liver function. The technician carrying out the test thought my blood *looked* cloudy and so ran a cholesterol test. He or she thought my blood *looked* bad – that’s worrying.

Here’s the normal range for triglycerides – a type of lipid like cholesterol.

• Normal — 1.7 (mmol/L)
• Borderline high — 1.8 to 2.2
• High — 2.3 to 5.6
• Very high — 5.7+

Drum roll please – my level was 19.8 – surely I get a prize?

Very similar to cholesterol, high triglycerides may harden arteries or thicken artery walls – increasing the risk of stroke, heart attack and heart disease. Extremely high triglycerides (err me) can also cause pancreatitis.

So I thought my days of eating crap to keep up the calorie intake have caught up with me. Pasties, crisps, fizzy drinks, curries, cooked breakfast, burgers, pizza….

…but, triglycerides are necessary, they provide the energy to power the body. They are produced by the digestive breakdown of fatty foods, however, production is so important that the liver and intestines make about 80% of the cholesterol needed, only about 20% comes from directly from food digestion.

So, with my level being off the chart and only 20% coming from food, I really don’t think it’s all down to my diet. It is possible (to be discussed with the docs, but there is medical evidence) that the forgotten spread of cancer to my liver has affected the operation of the liver – perhaps sending it into overdrive in the production of triglycerides.

So the doc has put me on Lipitor – a statin. I then went for a fasting blood test (to more accurately measure triglycerides). Following that they’ve doubled my dose – guess it wasn’t good news.

So, there’s my latest twist – what gets me first – heart attack, bowel, liver, lungs? And the twists of Tianmen Mountain? Tianmen translates to Heaven’s Gate – I hope 99 more more twists until I get there.