Mr. W had an appointment this morning with Body Scan International for a full-body scan. It’s like a giant 3-D animated MRI of your body from the trunk of the neck down to the pelvic region. He thought it’d be useful for me to take the day off and go along with him, as a second set of eyes/ears during the consultation. He first had to remove all the metal from his body (there’s quite a bit of it), then he went into a little room where I couldn’t follow, but when the radiology technician gave instructions and operated various scans, I could feel a powerful generator humming along. After the images were taken, we were told to return in 45 minutes for the consultation with a doctor.

We watched an animated x-ray image on the screen travel down the inside of Mr. W’s body, like how food would probably see him as it’s being swallowed, if the food were a tiny living Superman with x-ray vision. The radiologist explained various things on the screen as she paused to point out a few things. This is his stomach. It’s normal. This is the large instestine. No visible polyps, no abnormality, which is good for his age. Those black areas? That’s poo. Yay for poo. These are the spinal vertabrae. This is L1 through L5. There’s slight degeneration at the end of L5, which compared to a scan he took 5 years ago, had worsened slightly. This is the liver, spleen, kidneys. Nothing remarkable, no kidney stones or gallbladder stones. This is the heart, it’s normal-sized. This is the aorta. Uh-oh, see those white things along the edges of the circle? That’s calcification of plaque build-up. Let’s travel down and follow this aorta. See the white stuff here, and here, and also down by the pelvic region it reappears, here and here.

What’s that mean? Is that bad?
This is hardened fatty deposits in your blood vessels, and this is what may cause a heart attack. Your dad had his first heart attack symptoms your age, but after his bypass surgery he’s fine, so that’s good news for you. There’s an assessment score for the level of plaque build-up; yours is 66. A normal male your age should be at 33. You have twice the level you should have, and the rate of increase since your last body scan 5 years ago is high; 65%. You should really only be increasing about 15% a year as you age. But it looks like it’s genetic, since you’re in great shape and you exercise regularly and looking at your diet, you eat better than most people on restricted diets.

Cuz my husband looks like this (he took this picture about a month ago and thought it’d be funny to sneakily import it into my cameraphone pictures):

You have to ignore his messy head. He’d just gotten up.

So anyway, the radiologist said it looks like time that Mr. W got on high blood pressure and/or high cholesterol medication, and to take the scans to talk about this with his regular doctor. She suggested he start taking baby aspirin daily starting immediately, so that if a hardened area of his blood vessel ruptures, there’s less chance of a clot forming and causing a stroke. Mr. W is the last member of his family NOT on cholesterol medication; his parents and all 4 brothers are on it. =P

[Getting on my high horse] I noted to the doctor that he’s been eating a diet high in raw fruits and veggies and has dramatically minimized his fast food and soda intake in the last 2.5 years that I’ve been with him, and in the last 2 years, have started weightlifting regularly at the gym. He also does yoga once a week (rec class at the gym). So how could it have gotten this bad in the last 5 years?
Well, apparently, it would’ve been A LOT worse if he hadn’t done all that to curb it 2 years ago. Yay, me. Yay, organic. And I’m totally glad I haven’t had fast food in almost 3 years, and I’ve probably had 1 serving of soda in that time.

[Getting on my soap box] Somewhere in between high school and college, I pictured myself right where Mr. W found himself today. With my vivid imagination, I saw myself at a doctor’s office, gripping the edges of the armrest, as I was told that I have long-term damage to my body based on 40+ years of doing little things wrong. Years of refined white carbs, cookies, bleached white bread, fast food, excessive sugars in sodas and candy bars. I asked my imaginary doctor what there is to be done. “Nothing, except surgery if you have a heart attack, or baby aspirin to mitigate the effects of a stroke you’re very likely to have in the next couple years.” Crap. Crap. How could this have happened? What’d I do? “It’s nothing you did yesterday; it’s years of eating this and not exercising enough.” I need to go back in time, say to my late teens, early 20s, and stop eating those things! And then popping out of my day-nightmare, that’s exactly what I did. I joined a gym in 1994, cut down the fast food and junk food, virtually stopped the soda intake, didn’t pick up smoking or drinking (much), dramatically reduced sodium intake. As I got into my 30s, I stopped fast food altogether. I really don’t miss sodas or donuts, and don’t remember what was so great about them, cuz the former now burns my mouth and the latter burns my stomach. The more studies I read on newfound negative effects of junk food, fast food, artificial foods and sodas, the more it confirmed that I had been doing the right thing.

[Grabbing the loudspeaker] It’s not too late to not ruin the rest of your life. You don’t have symptoms now, but it doesn’t mean that stuff isn’t happening inside. My husband’s heart plaque is asymptomatic and if not for the scan, he wouldn’t have known about it. Thank goodness he didn’t have a heart attack first! All those problems you see in people in their 60s, where they’re struggling, popping prescription pills daily, always going to the doctor to be monitored for this or that problem, that didn’t start in their 60s. That started in their 20s and 30s. If you’re my age and you’re feeling healthy, make it last by NOT selling your future health for a greasy fried manufactured item today. It’s not worth it. PREVENTION IS KEY. And it’s cheap, WAY cheaper than daily meds and doctor visits and treatments and surgery.

[Stepping off my soapbox, putting away the loudspeaker] Of course, *I* didn’t get a body scan…