From the first moment I discovered I had been diagnosed with DIABETES, I joined a HUGE “club” that has been rapidly expanding since it stopped being a death sentence in the early 20th Century. Currently, there are about HALF A BILLION PEOPLE who have Type 2 Diabetes. For the past 3500 years – dating back to Ancient Egypt – people have suffered from diabetes. Well, I’m one of them now… Not one to shut up for any known reason, I added a section to this blog…Every month, I’ll be highlighting Diabetes research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you. Today: A Report on DEALING with Diabetes. Coming from a professional past of being a school counselor; having a daughter who is a mental health therapist; having a wife and son and friends and relatives who deal with depression, anxiety, and even anger…YOU’D THINK I COULD DEAL WITH MY OWN ISSUES BETTER…
You’d actually be wrong…
I DO have trouble being a Type 2 Diabetic.
I HAVE made progress.
My introduction to diabetes came from an old friend of mine who had (what was then called) Juvenile Onset Diabetes. It’s called Type 1 today. He was a bit younger than me, but we got close and shared lots of frustrations, joys, and A LOT OF LAUGHTER. He was funny and could make me laugh. I was funny enough to make HIM laugh. We were close enough that he was eventually the Best Man in Liz’ and my wedding almost 40 years-ago.
A year later, he died. He suffocated when he got lodged sideways in his and his wife’s water bed after having a diabetic seizure. He’d managed to get himself twisted around between the bag and the sides of the bed (it was an old-fashioned “sack of water” bed so that the bag covered his face…I clearly remember the phone call from his wife. Our first-born was pretty close to newborn; we were living in a crappy half-underground apartment that had a GREAT view of the knees-down-to-the-tennis-shoes of anyone walking past our apartment building.
“Greg died,” she said.
As details came out, I became even MORE terrified of diabetes than I was before that.
Ten-or-so-years-ago, I was diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic. I ignored it at first, but because I was married and had two kids, two in-laws, and three grandchildren. I had a career I was enjoying with prestige, making contributions to society, and feeling like I was making a difference in the lives of the kids I worked with. Retired now, both my wife and I are type 2 diabetics…and there I go again, “identifying myself by my condition”.
That’s probably been the HARDEST part of this whole journey. I AM NOT MY TYPE 2 DIABETES! But I still fall into that whole idea that I AM my diabetes. It’s something I can’t seem to shake for more than a day or two. I let myself be defined by it…don’t get me wrong, I am acutely aware of (and now accustomed to) some of the limitations Type 2 places on me, particularly in what I can and can’t eat…like I can’t have a DQ Peanut buster parfait every day! I can’t eat a bag of chocolate chip cookies in one sitting. I can’t ignore exercising (at least not ALL the time). I can’t dread doing calisthenics (though I REFUSE to do them by either biking every-other-day (spring through fall) or walking every-other-day (winter…which in Minnesota is October through March/April). So…I HAVE altered my behaviors and turned the adaptations into things I don’t MIND doing. I don’t eat exactly the same as I did as a teenager or young adult…but I can still eat most things – as long as I don’t gorge on them or have them every day.
Have I allowed my Type 2 to identify me? Hmmm…yes, to a certain degree. Am I more cautious about what I eat, how much, and how often? Yes, that’s for certain. Am I miserable?
Hmmm…I’m NOT carefree anymore. But that didn’t answer the question. I’m NOT miserable! My weight is reasonable (Shortly after I was diagnosed Type 2, I weighed in at something around 23 pounds, and my blood sugar was 189 (with an occasional foray into the 200’s). As of this morning, I weighed in at 228.6 and my blood sugar was 141 (often below that…)…
Have I died? Well, aside from the fact that I’ll be 70 years old next May, I feel fine! And by making SOME changes and creating new habits, I’ve managed to get my blood sugars (and blood pressure and weight) under better control than it was BEFORE the effort. Oh, I’m MUCH happier about my prospects in life! (The goal now is to see ALL FOUR of my grandchildren married!
…so there you go…
Links: https://diabetes.org/health-wellness/mental-health
For the first time since I started this blog eleven years ago, it’s going to be about me. I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes four years ago. While people are happy to talk about their experiences with diabetes, I WASN’T comfortable with talking about diabetes. The “other Type” of diabetes was what caused the death of my Best Man a year after my wife and I got married. He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was a kid. It was called Juvenile Diabetes then. Today it’s Type 1. I haven’t WANTED to talk about diabetes at all. But…for my own education and maybe helping someone else, and not one to shut up for any known reason, I’m reopening my blog rather than starting a new one. I MAY take a pause and write about Breast Cancer or Alzheimer’s as medical headlines dictate; but this time I’m going to drag anyone along who wants to join my HIGHLY RELUCTANT journey toward better understanding of my life with Type 2 Diabetes. You’re Welcome to join me!
I’m not going to be talking about how “DISCOVERIES IN TREATING TYPING 2 DIABTETES ARE GOING TO ROCK YOUR WORLD!!!!”
I’m talking about changes I can make in myself that can alter my Type 2 Diabetes. While not one of them is something you haven’t heard of or thought of at one time or another, they ALL bear repeating, because I get tired trying to remember all of the “the tricks” I need to play on myself to convince me that my blood sugars ARE NORMAL. They are NOT NORMAL! (NOTE: I avoided saying that somehow I’m “Not normal”, while realistically, “Type 2 diabetes affects approximately 10% to 11% of the total U.S. population, as type 2 diabetes makes up 90% to 95% of all total diabetes cases.” (https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/about/about-type-2-diabetes.html).
So STATISTICALLY, I AM NOT NORMAL. I need to make MORE of an effort to drag my rotten habits back into what would be considered “normal” – in other words: not taking several medications to keep my blood pressure and blood sugars in what my doctor considers "normal” – though less NORMAL than HEALTHY…for me. I’ve known my doctor for several years and we have a good relationship…firstly because, as a science teacher, I spent over fifty years being indoctrinated into recording DATA and reporting it AND using it to prove or refute whatever it was I was testing. I have sheets where I not ONLY record my BP and sugars – but what TIME, where, how, as well as averaging three blood pressures instead of just writing down one, and doing it every day. I hand the sheets to him every visit. Being a one-time-“biology major” before he ever became a doctor; and me being the same before I became a science teacher – I know what’s significant.
Now, does that mean I’m doing everything RIGHT?
Duh. No. It does NOT. It means I can not only report on my behaviors and trends; but I can actually UNDERSTAND what I’m doing wrong. While this isn’t a “silver bullet” I can out in the head/heart of the figurative “vampire of Type 2 diabetes”, I CAN monitor myself and he can make suggestions – while pointing to the evidence that my behaviors affect my health! So, I HAVE lost weight since I started keeping daily records. When I started, I weighed in at a hefty 253 lbs…today (literally this morning), I weighed in at 220.0 lbs.
It’s NOT magic – it’s AWARENESS. The data was clear: I had to become more active…which is, I’m sad to say, a continual push and pull. For example, my phone-steps-exercise application (STRAVA) now that I’ve learned to take it with me and turn it on and off -- tells me in painstaking detail how many steps I take or miles I bike; and annoyingly when I DON’T do anything.
I try to limit how often I get a DQ each week…lately, it’s been about once every two or three weeks. Then I DO make sure to bike the next day – I know it’s more like shutting the barn door after the horses have gotten. Don’t mistake me doing this as me ENJOYING EXCERCISING AND DIETING! It’s not.
It comes down to this simple desire: I want to see all four of my grandchildren walk down the aisle if they choose to get married. My chances are SMALLER if I do whatever I want with my weight and my health…so I watch my eating and I exercise. And you know what, KNOWING that I’m doing SOMETHING to see those future weddings...which are approaching possibility faster and faster every day! My oldest grandkid is now 16; (and driving…but that’s an entirely different fear!), next it 14; third is 7; youngest is just over a year.
Source: Personal Reflection
