A LITTLE KETO WON'T KILL YOU

 

Three quick entries in a row, then silence. Sorry guys, Blogger decided they didn't recognize my computer and blocked me until I gave them a phone number. I didn't, and it appears after a month of stonewalling they're letting me back in.

I don't really have an agenda for this post, but wanted to pop something up to try to recapture the momentum I lost while locked out. (Before the lockout I got 100 or more hits a day, and today it's 46. Damn.)

This last month has been pretty uneventful as far as health and sexuality are concerned, with the notable exception of a dramatic weight loss - by design, no need to worry. More about that in a minute.

I also celebrated my 61st birthday, and in far better health than I was at 40 and 50.

A week ago I had a one year+ follow up with my new/old urologist. To catch newbies up, I struggled with some pain in my lower left groin and testicle for around 13 years. Saw numerous urologists and had a half-dozen inguinal ultrasounds (that's where you go in and they run a device all over your groin and balls to peer inside). 

The universal diagnosis was a varicocele - think varicose vein in your balls - and I was dismissed by all of them, including my now former regular urologist. But the symptoms of a varicocele just didn't fit with what I was feeling - including the presence of a specific pinpoint of pain and a wirelike structure just above my left testicle, which is the opposite of a varicocele which is essentially "squishy."

Finally I saw my new/current urologist (keeping up?). He checked me out, read the previous diagnoses and, at my behest, he found the wirelike thing. Definitely *not* a varicocele, as I'd been suggesting. He checked it out with his own ultrasound machine and said we needed to schedule surgery. A month later he extracted a three inch portion of the left vas deferens - spermatic cord - which had calcified to the texture of "a wet toothpick." The wirelike structure.

Fast forward a year+ and I still have some mild pain and am working on the scar tissue from the surgery - a three inch cut that runs from the top of my nut up into the abdomen, roughly following the line where your leg attaches about a half-inch away from that line. (You can see a previous hernia scar and the new one in the mirror-image photo to the left.)

The new diagnosis is "problem resolved," and I agree with it. And for the first time in 13 years I heard something I've wanted to hear all along: "So, you're good. Call if you need to see me for anything else."

*Yay*

(I have a physical scheduled for next week, and am excited to get the results of that as well.)

And the other topic, the weight loss. It's deliberate. Earlier this year my wife and I went onto the keto diet with intermittent fasting. That means no sugar, very little carbs, and eating only six hours a day and fasting the rest. I'm also working out for a half-hour a day and keeping a set of weights near my desk for impromptu arm exercises.

It's been really successful so far, with my losing (at yesterday's weigh) 18 pounds in two months. That takes me to more than 60 pounds since my all-time high a number of years ago. I really miss pastas and bread, and plan some judicious re-integration of them, but keto isn't the hardest diet ever and once you get used to the eating times you don't really get too hungry during the fasting hours.

A danger I've warned my wife about is that as we get back into the Summer months I'm likely to be less-dressed than usual. I have thirty pounds to my goal weight, and if I can keep this up Summer ought to be reasonably clothes-free, at least in my back yard.

(I enjoyed it the other day when my wife came into the bathroom while I was showering. We have glass doors on the shower, and she stood outside the shower leaning on the counter talking about a number of topics, which she hasn't done before. I flatter myself she's appreciating the new and improved view.)

That's pretty much it for today, but I'm back. Cheers.