Functioning Within Normal Parameters

I had another doctor's appointment today, and I'm pleased to report that my thyroid levels are now -- and I quote -- "perfect." Yay, tiny little doses of hormone! My kidneys also appear to be functioning properly, which is good to know. The doctor thinks maybe the high readings the first time were due to me being dehydrated or something, although, being painfully thorough, she still wants to have it re-re-checked again in three months. So I have not entirely escaped the curse of the vampires yet.

It was rather entertaining, by the way, watching her look through my lab results and get all confused about which samples were taken while fasting. "But this was done at 4 PM!" Well, yes. 4 PM was also known as "too damned early in the morning" for me that particular day, and I most certainly had not had breakfast yet.

Actually, there are lots of practical issues with medicine and shiftwork that doctors and pharmacists don't even remotely seem to be aware of. Like, my thyroid medicine is supposed to be taken on an empty stomach, so the instructions for it say to take it when you first get up, at least half an hour before eating breakfast. They also say to take it at the same time every day. Um, yeah, which is it, guys? Because those two things are mutually exclusive for me. Fortunately, the compromise I came up with for that seems to have worked fine, based on the empirical evidence. But, still. This sort of thing can be a huge issue when it comes to medications you have to take every day -- or, much worse, twice a day -- and in all the stuff I've read about the health effects of shiftwork, I've almost never seen it addressed.