Diabetes Lottery

Inspiration From The Strangest Places

Before we head off to diabetes education class, I think now would be a good time to let you inside my head. Please keep your hands inside the ride at all times.  And please - no flash photography. 

There are many different ways to approach a problem, and I'm sure everyone thinks that their way is the best. I am no exception.  

Fight or flight is the most basic instinct.  In my opinion, if you have even the slightest chance of winning, fight is the best option.  Don't get me wrong, if a 1200 pound grizzly bear is about to remove your face, you may want to run, but  type II diabetes is not a bear.  It's time to stand and fight.  You may not be able to win, but you can beat it into submission.

It's all about attitude.  You can most certainly put your head down and feel sorry for yourself.  Take the meds that your doctor has prescribed, inject a little insulin, wait and hope.  Wait for the tingling to start in your fingers and toes. Wait for your vision to get blurry.  Wait for your organs to start shutting down.  Wait for the diabetic coma, heart attack or stroke.  And hope it doesn't happen for a really long time.

Or you can adopt my attitude.

An old Italian saying is, "If you dance, you have to pay the band."  What increases your risk of developing type II diabetes?  Smoking, inactive lifestyles, and certain dietary patterns (read:donuts and gravy).  I have contacted the American Diabetes Association and asked them to name this 'Bob Syndrome'.  I danced for 45 years.  And I danced hard. Legendary stuff.  Now I have to pay the band.

Whatever it takes, I don't care.  I have two kids, a great wife, great family and friends.  I will do whatever needs to be done, because even though my life is far from perfect, I'm not done yet, I don't anticipate being done for a really long time, and there is no way in hell that I am going to let diabetes take away one minute.

It's hard getting started.  It's hard staying motivated.  It's hard to change your lifestyle.  No kidding.  Look at each part of each day as a new challenge.  The feeling of accomplishment after completing each challenge will motivate you to meet and accomplish the next one.  It's a snowball effect. Put on you big boy (or girl) pants and get after it.  Keeping things simple can make even the most daunting tasks seem manageable.

My youngest nephew, Charlie, is five years old.  Charlie was in our office the other day and my father said, "Charlie, I hear you are doing really well with your swimming lessons."  Charlie looked at my father, and with wisdom that could only be imparted by a five year old said, "Poppy, it's not that hard.  The more better you try, the more better you get gooder."

My little nephew has it figured out.  "The more better you try, the more better you get gooder."  I wrote it down immediately.  The secret of life from a pre-schooler, and now my personal mantra.

  

What To Do? What To Do?

At first, of course, learning that I was diabetic was disconcerting to say the least.  After meeting with Dr. Jim however, I honestly felt that I would be able to handle it.  Dr. Jim gave me a basic understanding of what I should start doing immediately - the exact opposite of what I had been doing for 45 years. 

Dr. Jim explained that I needed to start an exercise program, control what I eat (notice I didn't say diet), and check my blood sugar regularly.  He was kind enough to give me a glucose monitoring kit and showed me how to use it.  It is a pretty benign looking apparatus; a little spring loaded needle, and a handheld monitor.  Prick your finger, touch the ensuing drop of blood to the test strip, and in 5 seconds you have your results.  The snapping noise that the needle makes is a little nerve racking to this day, but it's no big deal.  Glucose monitoring - handled.

I wouldn't say I was ever a sedentary person.  I love being in the outdoors.  I live on 5 1/2 acres, so there is always yard work to be done.  I coached grade school football.  I coached lacrosse.  When I wasn't doing that I was playing football or lacrosse with my kids in the backyard.  Oh yeah - I have a job too.  But even with that schedule, I still found time to watch television.  Lots of television. 

Exercise for the sake of exercising was never my favorite thing to do.  My wife and my sister-in-law run together.  Five miles a day.  Four days a week minimum.  At 5:00 in the morning.  She has been kind enough over the years to invite me to join them.  YEAH, RIGHT.   If I were going to list all of the things I would be interested in doing at 5:00 in the morning, getting out of my warm bed to run 5 miles wouldn't make the top ten thousand.  So I decided to keep up my walking.

After thoroughly depressing myself by learning that I was only physically capable of walking five tenths of a mile in thirty two minutes, I decided to make it a competition.  I would walk for thirty minutes every day and try to go a little further each day.  Please note that I said every day.  Over the top as usual.  If it was raining, I walked in the rain.  If it was snowing, I walked in the snow.  One time the snow was too deep to walk, so I walked laps around my basement for thirty minutes.  Swear to God.  If anyone had seen me they would have had me committed.  Every day without fail.  I started to notice that I was able to walk faster and further on an almost daily basis.  Sometimes, if I was feeling particularly froggy, I would jog part of the way.  By making it a competition, I found I was actually starting to enjoy it.  Being physically able to push myself to go faster and further than yesterday motivated me.  I don't know how far I walked and I don't care.  As long as it was further that yesterday I was happy.

Then I got an i-pod.  Yeah, I know.  I walked for three months in silence.  I'm not very tech savvy.

My oldest son loaded it up with "motivational music".  Hard core rock and roll.  I tried to keep time to the music with my footsteps.  It got to the point that I was actually looking forward to walking.  Who AM I?   Exercise - handled. 

It probably didn't hurt that I was starting to notice that my clothes were getting baggy.  Quite baggy actually.  The number on the scale kept getting smaller and smaller.  And people were starting to notice.  It's really comical actually, to see someone you haven't seen for a while after losing a considerable amount of weight.  You can tell they notice, but they don't know if they should say anything or not.  People would ask my wife, "Is Bob O.K.?  He's lost so much weight!  Is he sick?" 

A word of advice here.  When this happens to you, (notice I didn't say if) DO NOT reply to this question by saying "(insert name here) was diagnosed with diabetes."  This always makes people's eyes glaze over, grasp your hand or shoulder, and say "I'm SOOOOO sorry to hear that."  Now you're diseased.  Probably going to die.  Water cooler conversations begin with, "Did you hear about Bob?"  And trust me, bad news (perceived or otherwise) travels fast.

"DIET AND EXERCISE."  This is the correct answer.  People will look at you with admiration as opposed to pity.  You're not really dieting, but that'll be our little secret.

I was most concerned with this 'controlling what you eat' thing.  I am not a meat and potatoes kind of guy.  I am a meat and carbohydrates kind of guy.  I always thought the food pyramid consisted of meat, bread, chocolate, bakery items, and gravy.  I am sad to report that it does not.

Dr. Jim summed it up for me. (Imagine that.)

Cut way back on the carbs, increase the veggies.  WAY more on this later, but that was a beginning.  He also told me to go to the local hospital for diabetes education classes.  I can't recommend this enough.  There is too much you need to know and understand about this disease that will make your life easier to ever try to figure out on your own.

Controlling what you eat - handled (kind of)...

P.S. Just in case you are as tech-challenged as I am, you can follow this blog on Facebook, (Bob Abernethy) Twitter, (SalsLaxDad) or by clicking the 'follow' link on the sidebar.  Who knew?

Answers To Questions I Didn't Ask

First Things Third

Let me take a step back for a second and do what I should have done on my first post - the disclaimer. 

I am not a doctor.  I watch 'House'every week,  have access to WebMD, and dabble in self-diagnosis, but I am NOT a doctor.  The opinions I share on this blog, the programs I will describe, and the treatment I am taking, work for me.  That doesn't mean it will work for you.  I am not suggesting that you do what I have done, eat what I have eaten, or follow my exercise routine.  It may not even be possible for you to do so.  These babblings are just my experiences, and who knows - maybe they will help. 

I decided to write this blog because I have been pretty successful in dealing with my diabetes (so far) and I know firsthand how confusing the deluge of information can be. Just follow along, and I think you'll see that we have alot in common, and my experiences may help you.

As our relationship progresses, you will find that my attitude towards diabetes my be quite different than yours, (or anyone else's for that matter).  I hope you will adopt my attitude.  It may, at times, seem as though I am taking this disease lightly.  This may hurt your feelings.  If it does, please accept this as my blanket apology.  I realize what a terrible disease this can be.  I realize that some people (TypeI diabetics) can only manage their diabetes.  I realize that some people can't, because of physical limitations or otherwise, get their diabetes under control.  But I also realize that the vast majority of Type II diabetics can get their diabetes under control, and I believe, can beat it. 

So...

You may or may not have noticed that when I searched my Blackberry for diabetes information, I looked for causes, symptoms, and treatments.  I never read the complications that diabetes can cause.  I'm good like that.  Whenever I have a problem I only want to know two things.  Why do I have this problem, and how do I make it go away?  I think it is counter-productive to focus on the complications that may or may not happen, and to be quite honest, I don't really want to know.

Dr. Jim recently moved into a new office.  It's actually really nice, but it's still a doctors office.    Sitting in a room full of sick people is not my idea of a good time.  I know I'm their because I'm sick too, but they're surely sicker, and I don't want whatever it is that they've got.  Thankfully, It didn't take long for me to get to the thing I dread most about a doctors visit:  the weigh-in.

I know that the doctor needs to know how much you weigh but wouldn't it be easier to just ask?  The scale is not a friend of the fat guy.  "Two hundred and fifty two pounds" screamed the nurse in a voice that I'm sure has had operatic training.  People in the Starbucks down the street heard her.  I put my head down and sprinted into the examining room in hopes that no one would see who the freakishly fat guy was.

In the safety of the examining room I exhaled.  It's more difficult than you may think to try to suck your gut in and sprint.  I wiped the beads of nervous perspiration from my brow and waited for Dr. Jim.

As I have previously stated, I like Dr. Jim.  Our kids go to school together, we both coached for the grade-school football team, and he's just an all-around good guy.  That's why I like him as a person.  The reason I like him as a doctor is that he doesn't over-react, he doesn't over-diagnose, and he tells you like it is.  LOVE IT. 

Dr. Jim entered the room and we exchanged pleasantries.  "I'm sure you have alot of questions but let me try to just give you this thing in a nutshell" he said.  "You can do what I tell you, and you will live out the rest of your life with very little, if any, problems.  Or you can keep living like you've been living, and after you go blind, I'll have to cut your legs off."

O.K.  That may not be a direct quote, but that was what I heard.

I don't know about you, but everyone always seems to tell you to change your ways, or you're going to die.  Quit smoking or it'll kill you.  Lose weight or your gonna die young.  That, I can live with (no pun intended).  Dead is dead.  And dead is a consequence that we are all going to face eventually anyway.  Misbehavior may bring it a little faster, but it's coming regardless.

Had Dr. Jim told me that I should change my ways or I would die, I'm sure I would have taken his advice for a while.  But eventually, I'm afraid I would have adopted the attitude that "Everyone's gonna die anyway", and lost interest.

In my humble opinion however, suffering should be avoided at all cost.  Blind with no legs?  Not for this cowboy. 

"You tell me exactly what to do and I'll do it to the letter."

"Then," said Dr. Jim, "we've got this covered."  

Until Next Time:

I will, from time to time, put links on my blog.  These are links to things I find either really cool, really helpful, or really entertaining. 

Look on the sidebar and you will see a link for the book, We Hear The Dead, by Dianne Salerni.  Dianne is actually my cousin, and a tremendously talented author.  I found We Hear The Dead very entertaining, and I'm not alone.  She is now working on the screenplay, so I'm hoping to see this story come to life on the big screen in the future.  Highly recommended read.

Type II Diabetes: The First Year, by Gretchen Becker takes you through your first year as a diabetic, and will certainly answer any medical questions you may have about this disease.  I found it very helpful.

And who doesn't think the i-Pad is cool? 

 

 

 

My First Weekend As A Diagnosed Diabetic

Step One

As soon as I got in my car, I called my wife.  "Wendy, Jim called.  I have diabetes."  It felt strange to say it out loud.  Almost like I was confessing a sin I had committed.  After the required commiseration, she asked, "What do you have to do."  I really didn't know how to answer that question, but I knew what step one would be.  WebMD!

I couldn't type the web address into my Blackberry quickly enough.  

Jim mentioned something about 'Type II' so I searched 'Type II Diabetes'.

In the bakery parking lot, (isn't that rich?) I started my quest.  The Readers Digest version was, to the best of my understanding at that point,  that my body still produces insulin (the tool your body produces to allow glucose into your body's cells to be used for energy), but that either I wasn't producing enough insulin, or my body was not using the insulin effectively.  Therefore, the glucose  can't get into your body's cells and just remains in your bloodstream, causing a whole host of complications.  I would later get a much more thorough explanation, but this was a start. 

Now, what is the treatment?

In a nutshell - balance your food intake with meds and exercise. 

So there it was - the first line of the outline.  I had the most basic understanding of what I had, and how to control it.  And control it I shall!

Over The Top As Usual

I always seem to do everything to the extreme.  I like to think I'm a very passionate person.  My wife calls it obsessive/compulsive.  Whatever.  My father always told me that, "If you're going to do something, do it right or don't bother doing it at all."  Those words resonate in my head everyday, and I try to live by them.  I think I have expanded this thought into my own personal mantra: "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing."   This challenge would be no exception.

Diet and exercise.  Diet and exercise.  I can do this.  That night I skipped dinner, and went for a long walk.  Down the street from my house,  into the neighboring development,  down the long hill at the entrance, through better than half of it, back up the long hill, and back to my house. 

Check the time.  Thirty-two minutes.  Had to be three miles.  I should try out for the Olympics.  Some people probably think I'm out of shape, but that has to be some kind of land speed record.  Almost had a heart attack coming up that hill, but I never quit!  I AM THE MAN!

Then, just to be sure before alerting the media to my feat, I jumped into my truck to check the mileage.  Five tenths of a mile.  

Damn odometer must be broken.  Five tenths of a mile. Maybe I forgot to push reset. Five tenths of a mile.  After retracing my route for the third time, I realized I really had my work cut out for me.

P.S. Why did I call this post "My First Weekend As A Diagnosed Diabetic"?  As I later learned, with an A1C of 13.5, I had been diabetic for at least 6 months.  With the way I'd felt for the last two years, I have an inkling that it was much longer...

  

A 46 year old fat guy with diabetes? Who coulda seen that coming?

First and foremost - WELCOME!

Right off of the bat I'm going to assume that one of four things is true about you:

1.  You have just been diagnosed with diabetes and are searching for any information you can find on the subject.

2.  You have had diabetes for a while and are looking for new ideas for how to deal with it.

3.  You are waaaaaay overweight and are looking for your best course of action for when your Doctor finally does a bloodtest and makes it official.

4.  You are actually looking for the results from last nights lottery drawing in Des Moines and you are a horrible speller.

If you answered yes to one of the first three, I can help you.  If you answered yes to number four, well - no one can help you.

Let's Start At The Beginning

I am the type of guy that really doesn't  like to go to the Doctor, and fortunately, I've been healthy all of my life.  Fat - but healthy.  Good cholesterol (180-ish), good triglycerides (205-ish), and my bloodpressure was 110/77 every time I ever had it checked.  Really.

Still, I had two problems.  I was five foot nine and 254 lbs. and I felt like I had been run over by a truck most days for two or three years.

2009 was the breaking point.  All Summer, I really felt bad, so I did what I am really good at.  Self-diagnosis.  Yes sir, I am on a first name basis with the help desk at WebMD.  Just type in your symptoms and away you go!  Lethargic - check.  Extreme thirst - check.  Frequent urination - check.  Joint pain - check.  (More about these symptoms later.)

And BINGO!  Lyme disease.  

So, of course,  I called  Dr. Jim and asked for a prescription for Lyme disease medication.  The receptionist promptly reminded me that that isn't how it works and had me make an appointment.

As I have previously stated, I really don't like to go to the Doctor.  That doesn't mean, however, that I don't like my Doctor.  He's truly a great guy and a wonderful diagnostician.  I just don't dig Doctor's offices.  Begrudgingly, I walked into his office  in mid- November and proudly announced that WebMD had diagnosed me with Lyme disease.  He seemed less than impressed and, although I wanted to push the issue,  ordered complete bloodwork.  Complete waste of time in my opinion, Iknew what was wrong. I just needed a prescription.  But I figured the only way to get it was  to humor him, so off I went.

Happy Friggin' Thanksgiving!

After work on the night before Thanksgiving, I went to the local bakery to pick up one of my favorites - caramel apple pie.  Best eaten in a bowl of milk and sugar, or covered with ice cream, I was practically giddy with anticipation.  As I was literally waiting in line to pay, my phone rang.  I looked at the caller i.d. and saw it was Dr. Jim.  I could hardly wait for him to tell me that my diagnosis was correct and that I could finally pick up the Lyme disease meds.  I sat my pie on the counter and walked outside for a little privacy.

"Bob, it's Jim".  I could tell by his voice that this was not going to be good news.  And then the three words that changed my life - "You have diabetes".  No, no, there must be some mistake.  How could I have diabetes?  And by the way - what in the hell is diabetes anyway?

 "So you think I have diabetes" I asked? 

"I don't think you have diabetes, I know you have diabetes.  Your bloodsugar was 360 and your A1C was 13.5.  I don't want to worry you, but those are big numbers.  If these were fasting numbers it would be a real cause for concern."

Now when was the last time you had bloodwork done and ate pancakes before you went?  Of COURSE these were fasting numbers.  The numbers had no meaning to me whatsoever, but they were fasting numbers and they were evidently 'BIG'.

"Bob, I want to see you in my office first thing Monday morning, and please, don't let this ruin your Thanksgiving.  Trust me... we've got this.  You'll be fine."

I hung up with Dr. Jim a confused and frightened man.  I have diabetes.  I really wasn't exactly sure what diabetes was, what the consequences were, or what the treatment was, but I knew one thing for sure.  I wasn't eating any of that pie.