Growing up I’ve never really had a whole lot of issues with anything as far as health is concerned. I’ve always been pretty thin, spent very little time going to see doctors, never really had to go on any medication for anything major, and I’ve always considered myself pretty much healthy. I guess you could say that I have pretty good genes…kind of. There is one thing that has managed to raise its ugly head at this point in my life: The Adams Curse. It’s a particularly horrendous curse that just about every Adams is infected with and there isn’t a whole lot we can do about it. We have a gremlin, passed down through generations, that crawls around in your bloodstream rubbing peanut butter on the walls of your arteries. He’s an evil little devil who can only be vanquished by a little pill named Lipitor. Yep! I have familial hypercholesterolemia.

Familial Hypercholesterolemia is defined by Wikipedia as “a genetic disorder characterized by high cholesterol levels, specifically very high levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL, “bad cholesterol”), in the blood…” It’s defined by me as “a whole lot of suck.” Yeah, it’s no fun and probably means I’ll be taking medication until I die to keep it under control. You could say that I’m being a bit dramatic about the whole thing and it really isn’t that big of a deal, but I’ve never had to go on meds for anything for a long period of time. I’ve been convinced for the last 25 years that I didn’t have any of the major issues that my dad has. I’ve been plagued by a few things, but they’re manageable and don’t require pills. Last night, I found out that this is a big deal and I have to limit my intake of some of my favorite foods! Disaster!

That’s not to say that I don’t need to cut back on certain things anyway. The sad part is that because of my high cholesterol, I got denied life insurance from the company I was getting it from. They did the blood test and apparently I’m a high risk candidate. Crazy talk, I say! I’m 25! It’s kind of weird though that I’m not even that concerned over the life insurance thing. I was just getting that because it was cheap and available. I just thank God that I was able to learn about my cardiovascular issues early on. I don’t know when I would be getting a blood test had it not been for this life insurance deal. It might have been another 10 years before I bothered with blood work.

I am incredibly thankful that this is something that I’ll be able to handle without too much trouble. A few changes in diet, a pill to take every day, and exercise and I should be good to go. I already like to run and I don’t eat terribly either so I really can’t do much to fix it on my own. The bad thing about familial hypercholesterolemia is that you can’t really do anything about it with just diet and exercise. So I get to officially go on medication at some point in the near future. I’m not really too thrilled about that, but one must do what one must do I guess.

So here I am for the first time being faced with my own mortality. I only know one way to handle this…punch mortality right in the face! BOOM!