diabetes

3 Day Limbo

Now I know I have diabetes. But I’m not really doing anything differently until I have my first diabetes education class on Tuesday. I know that I’m going to have to start Testing on that day. (they told me to bring my little blood-testing machine) I know I will survive all that, but sometimes I get overwhelmed with thoughts of having to prick myself and draw my blood X number of times per day, like… for the rest of my life? I’m experiencing these last three days of somewhat ignorant somewhat bliss, my fingertips intact for a little while longer. I have to admit I am feeling some grief over this. But in the midst of this, I’ve also had some incredibly happy times.

The Springsteen concert on Wednesday was awesome. And last night my friend E and I went to the newly-refurbished incredibly beautiful Fox Theater to see… The Moody Blues!!! To say that it was a TRIP is an understatement. I don’t even think I could describe it in a way that would give it justice. Crazy psychedelic graphics, and hundreds of grey-haired hippies, pulsing flowers and floating clouds, and just… groovy, man. E and I had our mouths gaping in complete disbelief. Also shock that we KNEW 85% of the songs BY HEART even though we had not heard them in probably over 30 years. It was just… trippy. And way more fun than I’d had in a long time. It felt good to laugh and dance and be goofy.

My Couch-to-5k training continues to go well. This morning I wanted to get in a run/walk before WW and my friend M wasn’t available so I went with my trusty iPod and ended up definitely running more than my 2nd-week workout dictates. I’ve discovered that my PERFECT jogging tempo is to Cat Stevens’ “Wild World.” (la la la la la la) I really felt like I could have kept going a long time. But I had to go to my meeting and…

I lost another pound. That was a good thing. One more to TWENTY! I don’t think I’ve ever lost 20 consecutive pounds before. (just the same ones, over and over) I’ve weighed less than I do now, but after starting out at a lower weight, so I never lost that much.

In spite of the weight loss, I have to say that WW really turned me off today. The leader was talking about food substitutions, you know, to deal with still be able to eat our “old favorites.” And she said her favorite, most awesome thing was a Diet Soda Cake. I was like… wha?????? She said it basically consists of taking a box of cake mix (ie box of chemicals) and switching out the egg and oil for… a can of diet soda!! So it’s basically nothing but a chemical cake. I’m thinking, could ANYthing be more gross than that??

And it just kind of underscored my feeling about WW really just hawking prepared foods filled with crap. The idea made me wince: a box cake made with DIET SODA? Okay, I’ll stop ranting now. But ugh.

Yesterday I went to visit another friend who is one of the most fashion-savvy people I know. She is my personal “What Not To Wear” consultant. Anyway, she was purging her closets and gave me 2 bags of unbelievably COOL clothes! Including a very adorable Little Black Dress and a cute grey skirt. Now, I have not worn either a dress OR a skirt in probably 15 years, so to try these things on and not be repulsed beyond belief was a milestone that made me incredibly happy. And really nice jeans! And a plaid jacket with A BELT!! It’s probably been 15 years since I’ve worn a belt of any kind, other than a bathrobe one. 🙂

So, I’m carrying on. I’m hanging in there. Part of me is trying on the idea that maybe this diabetes thing could be some bizarre Gift-In-Disguise. It’s not going to let me off the hook. Which is what I really need.

April 4, 2009 6

Medicine by Dr. Bruce, and Re-Adjusting

Well, the Day of Wallowing is over. So now begins the week/month/year/lifetime of trying to figure this all out. I want to thank all of you lovely wonderful people who commented, emailed and DMed me yesterday after my distressing/distraught post. I can’t tell you HOW MUCH those comments buoyed me up. Truly. I am grateful, so grateful, to every single one of you. Your comments made me well up with warmth and a sense of being truly taken care of. So THANK YOU.

Last night it helped immmmmmmmensely to have tickets to see Bruce Springsteen. At first I really didn’t even want to go, I just wanted to – you know – WALLOW – but it seemed stupid to pass up such an event, and I am so glad I didn’t. It was great medicine. When he started out with “Badlands” –

it aint no sin to be glad you’re alive

it gave me a big lump in my throat. And then he’d yell periodically into the audience, “Is anybody aliiiiiiiiiiive out there?” and I had to jump up and down and yell affirmation to that. I’m still alive! Hell yeah!

I got up in the morning and did my 2nd session, 2nd week of Couch-to-5k with my buddy Mary. It was a lot better and easier than earlier in the week, which was great. So it felt good to start the day with some affirming exercise.

Then later in the day I got down to some of the business of dealing with this diabetes thing.

I signed up for a bunch of diabetes-related blogs, forums and Tweets.
I registered for Diabetes Education classes, which begin next Tuesday. They said to bring my glucometer (blood testing machine). I have to say, this put a twinge of fear/resistance/oh noooooo into my heart. I had a moment of the heaviness of FOREVER. But then I breathed it through. I really do think this is going to have to be one day at a time.
I got an appointment to see the opthamologist this afternoon. I had just read this sobering account of Mary Tyler Moore’s (type 1, not 2) diabetes, and how her vision is really starting to go. This made me so sad and scared, so I was glad they had an immediate appointment.
The good news: I don’t have any “vascular complications” in my eyes.
The bad news: (watch out, I’m about to rant) The eye doctor asked for my family medical history. I said I didn’t know, because I was adopted. She said, “You’re adopted?? Oh, that’s so cuuuuuute!” I almost launched into an Arlo Guthrie yell (a la “Alice’s Restaurant”) “Kill! Kiiill! Kiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllll!” but I refrained.
Rant #2: as if it was’t bad enough being told that being adopted is “cute” it reminded me ONCE AGAIN of the absolute wrongness, indignity and danger of not having access or knowledge of my family medical history. Now maybe I don’t have a genetic family history of diabetes. But maybe I do. And if I do, and I had, say, KNOWN about it, five years ago, maybe I could have diagnosed/dealt with this even earlier. Who knows. But it just SUCKS so much to have no idea about these things. It is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG in every way possible.
I filled my prescription for Glucophage/Metformin and took first dose at dinner tonight.

So, I did everything on my endocroinologist’s check-off list. I bought a book about diabetes.

I’m a little thrown off in terms of the diet thing right now. I think my primary concern is figuring out what to do to keep my blood sugars “under tight control” which is what the opthamologist said I must do if I do not want to go blind. (OK! OK! I will!!!) Hopefully what is good for the blood sugars will also be good for the weight and it will all sort of work itself out. But right now I don’t have it in my to count the points or calories. I’m just sort of hanging on.

April 3, 2009 6

D-Day

Diagnosis Day. Diabetes Day. Depressed, discouraged, disgrunted, disappointed day. That’s been today for me.

I know I had some inner inkling from the awfulness of the glucose test on Monday, but part of me was also feeling so confident and happy and proud of myself for losing weight and exercising and just DOING GOOD since my last visit to the endocrinologist in February.

She came right in to the room and said, “Well, I’m sorry to say it, but you definitely have diabetes.”

Clunk.

Umm, what happened to “pre-?” I think that was probably wishful thinking back then. But I did have a few months to get used to the idea and during that time I did get significantly healthier in terms of my weight, blood pressure, cholesterol etc.

I was so shocked (well, part of me was, and part of me was not). And disappointed. And like, “Noooooooooooo!!!!!!! After all of my hard work!!” Isn’t it supposed to go, that you get rewarded for doing well? This is not the result I was wanting or expecting.

I sort of plaintively, hopefully asked, “Can I make it go away?” and she shook her head sadly and said, “I’m afraid not.”

But most probably I had it all along but it wasn’t until the finality of the glucose test that it was objectively defined.

In January my fasting blood glucose (BG) was 123. (official diagnosis = 125 or over) So that’s where I got the idea it was “pre-.” In February I had it down to 110 and I was feeling pretty damn good. So now it’s April. My fasting BG was a spectacular 101 (yay!) but that’s where the good news ended. My “postprandial” BG was 272 after 1 hour post-glucose. (normal is 90-150) It was only a little bit lower after 2 hours. Which explains exactly WHY I felt so deathly awful. It was for real.

I know that millions of people live happily (?) and healthily with diabetes. I know it’s a lot better than other diagnoses one could get. But still, I didn’t want this. I tried so hard to prevent it from happening.

I didn’t much like it when she tested my feet and gave me a prescription to go to an opthamologist and called it a “progressive disease.” I hate the sound of that.

I started crying in the doctor’s office, and then sat in the car and cried for an hour (see my tearful Twitters) and then drove around mournfully for the rest of the morning. I cancelled my visit with my friend because I was just too glum to be able to cheer someone ELSE up. Now I’m going to take a nap. I do feel like I will eventually recover from this, hopefully as early as tomorrow, but today I feel sad and shitty and like rolling up in a little ball and whimpering “It’s not fair.” Which it isn’t, but nothing really is.

I hereby proclaim today Official Day of Wallowing, and tomorrow I get up and carry on.

April 1, 2009 20

Sugar Coma

I used to be one of those people who honestly believed that food did not affect how I felt. I thought that people who really felt that food affected their physical selves (other than, like, stuffing themselves on Thanksgiving) were kind of neurotic and somehow making it up.

I am sooooo not that person anymore. Yesterday I had to take a glucose tolerance test in preparation for my endocrinologist appointment tomorrow. I’ve been putting this off for weeks, and yesterday was the last possible day. So I went into the lab on an empty stomach, got my fasting blood sugar drawn, then proceeded to drink a bottle of orange syrup. I tried not to think about it too much but it was pretty awful. Luckily, I kept it down (have not always in the past). Then I went to a waiting room to sit and wait for an hour, get my blood drawn again, wait another hour, get it drawn again.

I didn’t feel so bad while I was there. I had my computer, and free Wi-Fi, and I kept myself fairly amused while I waited. But then I tried to go to work. And then I tried to go to my trainer to workout. NO.

I was a total space cadet at work, even for a brief few hours. I couldn’t think. I went to the gym and said, “All you’re gonna get out of me is an hour of Dead Man’s Pose.” He laughed. I did a bunch of stretching and some verrrrrrry gentle conditioning stuff. I felt totally dizzy and ill.

I felt as if I did not get some protein in me, namely a turkey sandwich, I would die. I went to the little sandwich shop near my house and inhaled a turkey and cheese sandwich. (no, it was not slow eating by any stretch) It didn’t really help.

Went home. Passed out for several hours. Didn’t really feel capable of preparing or eating dinner. Told my family “you’re on your own.” (we call this YOYO dinner) They scraped something together. I slept. Much later, I got up, had a bowl of tomato soup, put on my jammies and watched Rachel Getting Married. (which, by the way, I LOVED on so many levels) But I was hopeless. Completely hopeless and helpless all evening. I couldn’t wait to go to bed and have it be over.

So yeah. This was the worst case of postprandial fatigue I’d ever experienced. This was taking “sleepiness after lunch” to extreme degrees. It was the first time I’d ingested so much sugar since January- I’d had one piece of lemon tart, and a piece of birthday cake, but those were smaller amounts of sugar on a full stomach. This was a huge quantity of glucose on an empty stomach. IT KILLED ME. I haven’t felt this bad unless I’ve been really, really ill.

I’m worried that my severe reaction means that maybe in spite of everything, I do have diabetes. But maybe not. I really have no idea. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.

I feel one thousand percent better today. So, the lesson for the week is, yes, the food I eat DOES affect how I feel. I feel like I don’t want to eat carbs or sugar for a very, very long time.

March 31, 2009 7

Assessment: Two Months Today

Two months ago today, on January 17th, I got my wake-up call and thus began my… what? My New Life? My Healthy Journey? I keep trying to think of how to describe it. I think I shall call it my Turnaround. Also Turnover. I began turning over all of my old habits, thoughts, fears, activities (and lack of) and really trying to examine what got me to that point. It’s been a very busy two months.

Here’s my little self-assessment after two months have passed. In the tradition of the maddening “narrative progress reports” that my kids used to bring home from school, because the poor little darlings were’t thought to have enough self esteem for letter grades:

What’s Going Well:

Well, I’ve actually lost 16 lbs! That’s no small potatoes. And I intend to keep going. I’ve been through a plateau or two, and a day or two of discouragement, but the trend is steadily downward. And that can’t help be encouraging.
I haven’t had a major bout of Emotional Eating since Jan 17th. I can’t even describe how shocked, incredulous and frankly moved I am by this. Previously I would not have thought this possible. I truly have found ways in which to ride out the emotions, write them out or talk them through. And they have passed. In the many times that I’ve dieted in the past, THIS part was never really addressed. So it’s huge. HUGE, I tell you.
I am pretty happy most hours of most days. Which I can say has not been true for YEARS. I mean, I used to have some happy moments in what were either “regular” blah or downright bad-feeling days. NOW, I have moments of absolute ECSTASY within days that are mostly happy or at least content, with little blasts of unhappiness now and then. I don’t know whether to attribute this to the endorphins from exercising, to the fact that it just feels comfortable and nicer to be smaller and fitter, or the fact that I am channeling my emotions properly rather than using food. Probably ALL of the above.
Most importantly, I think I am improving my health. I have been able to discontinue my blood pressure medication that I have been on for over five years. I think I’m going to have more improvements when I next see my doctor in April. I’m moving in the right direction.

What is Going Better But Could Be Improved:

Low-level anxiety that This Cannot Possibly Last.
Insecure in my new habits (this is echo of first point)
Probably too much focus on the scale

What Needs Major Improvement:

Eating breakfast. I’m getting tired of eggs, not wild about many other breakfast foods, etc. I KNOW it is the most important meal and that it jump starts your metabolism and all that! I really need to work on this one. I am going to experiment with eating lunchy/dinnerish foods in the morning and see if that helps any.
(more echo of point one) “Breakfast like a queen, lunch like a duchess and dinner like a pauper.” This is what I’ve read repeatedly but still dinner is THE MAIN EVENT around our house. I wonder how much it would help if I could actually implement this style of eating. We did eat like this in Latin America, where the main meal is at noon, then dinner was more like what we’d call a “snack.” And I did lose 26 lbs while living in Central America, but that was probably the hard labor and turista. 🙂

Conclusion: All in all, things are going shockingly well. I have to say that I am cautiously optimistic. But nervous, you know, because I’ve never done this before.

March 17, 2009 12

Good Doctor

I had my first visit with my endocrinologist this morning. It was good!! I really like her. She’s very young but super friendly and seems to really know her stuff. She was easy to talk to. She took her time, didn’t seem rushed, let me ask all my questions and was overall just great. YAY!

So, my big question #1: do I have diabetes? The answer was, no, not YET but I am certainly at very high risk. The lab slip shows that I am no in the “diabetic” range but am in the “impaired” range. She gave me big credit for losing 12 lbs (yes! finally cracked that wall!) in the past month, and said that obviously made a big difference. I still have about 16 to go. (at least)

I have to go for an oral glucose tolerance test, which for those of you who have not had the pleasure, is one of the nastiest experiences ever. You have to chug a huge quantity (a quart?) of what is essentially SYRUP and then get your blood tested as you see how your body responds to this mass sugar intake. I am SO not looking forward to it, especially since I have had about zero sugar in the past month (except that teeny slice of chocolate cake) and I know my body is not going to respond in a pretty way. I had to take this test several times while pregnant. Once I chugged too fast, trying to get it over with, you know? and ended up puking it all up and having to START ALL OVER again. I remember sitting down on the floor and just bawling my eyes out. Hopefully it will go better this time – but man, I am not looking forward to it.

But otherwise we had a good chat. She said it was more important to lose the weight than to actually do a diabetic diet at this point, and whatever combination of food plan/exercise/emotional support will get me to the weight loss, that’s the best plan. She did give a shout-out, however, to the Zone Diet and the Mediterranean Diet. I’m going to check out the Zone book.

So that’s the plan. Exercise every day if possible. Continue whatever diet feels the most do-able, but most definitely try to stay away from anything high carb. Check back in five weeks. I am actually very happy to have this five-week appointment because it gives me a target date. I want to have lost weight in five weeks. I want my numbers to be even better.

It took a few minutes for her to come in to the exam room, and while I was waiting I looked at this big DIABETES poster on the wall right next to me. What are the results of untreated Diabetes 2? Heart attack! Stroke! Amputations! Blindness and neurological problems!!! With nice illustrations for each! Oh, boy. Yeah, I do not want these things. I am going to walk/row/pedal my way away from that stuff and fast.

I feel like I’m in a good place right now. I feel like I can do it and it’s not painful.

Oh yeah, I am excited because Biggest Loser is on AGAIN tonight! I’d love it if they could do two one-hour shows every week.

And LOST! And Top Chef!!

February 25, 2009 2

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