Random Acts of Madness 2.0 » Life

Life Changes

Andrew — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:44:39 +0000

Right now I look down at my clock and it says “9:03 AM” and all I can do is think … “crap, three more hours”. Today is the day I start insulin treatments for my diabetes. Of the few people that read my blog I’m sure you all know that I’ve been diabetic for about five years now. Type II. Meaning I only had to take pills and work on my diet and exercise. Well now I’ve been promoted. I’m not exactly sure if it’s called Type I for me or insulin dependent Type II.

A couple of weeks ago I had to get my blood work done for my annual physical (which I had last week). All seemed to go well, I had been feeling tired, but nothing out of the ordinary. On Tuesday of last week (the day before my physical) I received a call from the head nurse at my doctor’s office saying she needed to talk to me before my appointment. Having already missed the opportunity to call back that day (by about ten minutes), I began a long, hard, thirteen hour wait until I could call in the next morning at 7 AM, only two hours before my physical.

I spent those thirteen hours more or less making lists of what could or could not possibly be what she wanted to talk to me about. After a couple of hours I had it pretty well settled that it was going to be a warning that the doctor wants to put me on insulin. It’s really the only thing I could think of that the receptionist just couldn’t tell me. Sure enough the next morning I pull myself out of bed and call the office at 7 AM sharp and what was I told? “Andrew, Doctor Roy wanted me to call you and let you know your A1C reading was extremely high and she is going to be talking to you about starting insulin treatments when you come in for your appointment.” It took ten seconds and felt like my life was going to end.

Sure enough, when I got to my physical I looked at my “report card” and my HBA1C was 11.1. For those that haven’t had that tested, yes, that is high, that is very, very high. Your A1C should be below 7, my last check was 8.4. The doctor said it meant that my sugar averaged over 400 a day, when it needs to be around 100. The biggest thing that this leads to is the likelihood that my pancreas was more or less shutting down and no longer producing insulin. The tests also showed that my kidney function has begun to deteriorate, which is also very bad. On a bright note, my cholesterol was good at 95 (needing to be below 100) for the first time in years.

I left the doctor’s that day with no modified prescriptions and two new ones. Anti-depressants (which I’m having problems with – not with the pills themselves, but with my insurance not wanting to pay for them) and my insulin. I also left with slips for three new appointments, one for today – my insulin education “class”, one for next week to double check my blood pressure and one for the week after to see how I’m doing on insulin.

I want to take a moment to publicly thank Jim Hines. Every now and then in his blog he writes about diabetes, as he’s had Type I for a number of years. I’ve read and re-read those blogs and they’ve helped me a lot. Especially where he reminds everyone that having to be on insulin isn’t losing its just the next stage of the game. It’s a hard thing to come to terms with and he helped me a lot. Jim is also an author from the East Lansing/Holt area that has written a number of great books (I’ve reviewed at least one on the site) and I recommend you check him out at his blog

I always say I’m going to try to write more and maybe I will maybe I won’t. I will get an update since as many know seven weeks ago today my son Alan Scott was born and I’ve had so many things I’ve wanted to say and do about him that well I don’t know, I’m rambling a little now. Here’s to another update, hopefully less than five months from now.

Being Diabetic in a Non-Diabetic World (or Household)

Andrew — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:38:59 +0000

Many who read this may or may not know that I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes around five years ago. Since then I have done very poorly at remembering to take my medication or check my blood sugar.

Enter [url=http://www.rememberthemilk.com]Remember the Milk[/url] and my nifty new glucometer. I’ve been using RtM for roughly three weeks now and I can’t recall I day that I’ve missed my pills. I use the note feature in it to keep track of my blood pressure and my blood sugar as well. The site is great on it’s own or you can integrate it into gmail (and possibly other e-mail clients), an iPhone/iPod Touch, or even most Smart Phones.

I’ve only been checking my blood sugar now for five days and the results always seem bleak. So far they’ve ranged between 223-281 in the morning with one fluke of 181 and between 292 and 367 in the evening a couple hours after dinner and before bed. In the morning the results should range between 80 and 120 and two hours after meals it should be 160 or less.

On a bright note my morning readings have been getting increasingly lower with the 281 being the first day I checked and the 223 being this morning. My evening results seem to hover between 290 and 300 for the most part.

Now admittedly I was in denial for probably the first two years of my diagnosis because I’m fairly young and I like to eat. And liking to eat is my problem. You cold even say it’s my bane.

Now it’s not that I like to sit around and eat all the time, but I do like good food and I do like to go out from time to time.

I’ve learned when going out your best bet is to get water to drink. Most resturants have a very poor selection of sugar free drinks: water and diet cola. Ok so water it is (unless the place has particularly good Diet Coke – which I only know of one anymore). The next thing up is what to eat. My favorite foods are Chinese and Italian – both are a nightmare for diabetics. The rice and pasta turn into glucose and up goes your levels (in fact that 367 was after a dinner at The Olive Garden). Now the obvious answer here is probably to just not go out and eat these things. I can better select what I make at home.

This brings me to an even bigger problem. I’m diabetic, my wife and roommate are not. So what do we commonly end up eating. Usually cheap and easy pasta dishes (mac and cheese or knock-off Hamburger Helper). There have been many times I’ve just wanted to throw all the bad things out, but they’re so good.

You’re body does need so many carbs everyday and smaller more regular portions are better, but have you ever seen how much is actually in a serving of pasta? About 1/2 cup. I’m 6’5″ tall and I weight about 280 lbs. A 1/2 cup of pasta is actually about the size of my fist, maybe a little less. And I’m one hungry guy.

I’ve tried following appropriate diets in the past, but with two people that never seem to have to worry about how high their blood sugar goes compared just one of me, I tend to cook for the masses. I don’t like inflicting what I have to go through on them.

Lately I find myself being asked “What’s for dinner?” and my response is to look over at my testing stuff (glucometer, lancer and my blood pressure cuff) and just say “Nothing, eat what you want.” Why? Because my brain says “if you eat, you’re sugar will be high and you’ll be depressed all the next day.” Do I go without eating? Not generally, in fact when that happens I eat too much. Kraft needs to learn to make 1.5 box sized boxes of mac and cheese since 2 boxes is too much for three people, but one is not enough.

What I find amusing is that it costs far too much money to do the healthy thing when you are sick. I can get a bag of cereal that is full of carbs (and lots and lots of sugar) for about $2 and it’ll last me three weeks or more, or I can buy and carton of eggs for about $1.29 and it won’t even last a week. Foods that are good for you like raw vegetables I can’t eat, they make me ill. I do so wish I could eat a salad. Fresh fruits are high in sugar, and while that kind of sugar is better and your body can handle it easier, it’s still too sweet.

Well enough of the rambling. There may be health updates as things go along. Hopefully next up will be a review of District 9.

You Make Me Want To Be A Better Person

Andrew — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:38:52 +0000

I’m sure most people have seen the movie “As Good As It Gets” with Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt and Greg Kinnear. If you haven’t, I’m sorry, the movie is over 10 years old so I’m not going to worry about spoiling anything for you.

So near the end of the movie Nicholson tells Hunt “You make me want to be a better person” during this sob story about his pills. Have you ever felt like that or a had a person fill you with such joy that you want to change something about yourself?

Today I recieved a letter from my doctor. I am evidently past due for my diabetes checkup (although I was informed in January they didn’t want to see me until August). It made me realize I am horrible at taking pills. I hate taking pills. I’m supposed to take at least 12 pills a day. That’s a lot of pills. 2 for sugar, 1 for blood pressure, 1 for a fast pulse, 5 for pain, 1 for high cholesterol, an aspirin for heart protection and a vitamin. That’s a lot of fraking pills.

I admit that I forget a lot. In fact I don’t think I’ve taken them for two weeks. Why is that? Because I too lazy to keep my pill bottles prepped. I had a wonderful system of these nifty little vial like plastic tubes that I could fit a dose into. I set them up to have morning and evening bottles. I’d take each dose and then I’m supposed to toss them in a box so I can start refilling them … and well I don’t know where most of them are now.

I know I need to take my pills. I know I need to lose weight – doing so means I don’t have to take my pills because my body should straighten itself out. I want to be a better person. I want to be around for my wife, my kids (when I have any), my family and my friends.

So now I sit here trying to figure out what to do. I find myself sitting alone a lot lately. I try to do constructive things (this blog for example). I try to make things. I try to do so many things. In the end, I feel like I’ve done nothing. I’ve always chocked this up to “It’s Life” and deal with it. That may or may not be best way to handle, but until better things get figured out that’s how it will be.

And I’ve now realized that I’m moving farther and farther away from my thoughts when I started this post and should probably stop. I’m going to try to write over the weekend, but I hope to have a new review up on Monday and hopefully going into the next week I’ll get better plans for what’s going to be posted regularly on track (or at least started).