Surprising result

From the lab work that was done on Monday, I thought I was done with all the tests they were going to do with my blood.  Wrong!  I happened to log onto Kaiser's patient website to look at when my next appointments were and found this message that was sent to me before a received an e-mail notification:

"All of your lab results look good, except for your vitamin D.  Your vitamin D level is low (24):  Normal range is 30-100.  A prescription is entered into the computer for you to pick up at any Kaiser pharmacy for vitamin D 50,000 units by mouth to take three times a week (or every other day) for 6 doses.

"You should also be taking over-the-counter vitamin D3, 2000 units daily as a routine supplement.  Continue taking the over-the-counter dose after completing prescription.  You will need to check lab again (vitamin D, PTH, calcium) after treatment.  Orders have been entered for non-fasting lab to be done the week of March 10th.

"You may also find the following website contains helpful information and you may purchase supplements designed for bariatric patients: www.bariatricadvantage.com."

So after reading all of that, the thing that struck me first was the part where she mentioned purchasing supplements for bariatric patients.  I wondered to myself, "Am I a bariatric patient now? Have I been okayed to move forward?"  These are legitimate questions, but probably most people would focus on the deficiency part first and worry about the bariatric label later.  Not me ... impatience rearing it's ugly head.

Back to the vitamin deficiency, I wondered how I could possibly be lacking in vitamin D.  Usually that's for people who don't get enough sunlight.  I do try not to bake in the sun since having melanoma, but I also don't hibernate indoors either.  I know it's winter time, but I live in southern California - there's generally always sunshine of some sort.  I went online to Web MD to see if I could find out what was going on.  What I saw made sense: of the various symptoms, I qualify in two areas - have darker skin and lactose intolerant.

I went to the pharmacy and picked up the prescription.  Pills with 50,000 units of vitamin D seems like a lot, but I'm sure that's just to get my levels back to where they should be.  I always think to myself that I have too many pills to take, but that is incredibly laughable because, after I have the gastric bypass, I will be taking vitamins for the rest of my life.  I am sure I will get rid of most, if not all, of my other pills as my health improves in the future.  I need to do what I need to do to get my level back to normal, so no big deal in the big scheme of things.