The Diabetes Blog

It’s funny how you can wake up not feeling well one morning, and by the end of that day your entire life is different.  Mine will be forever divided into the period before my diabetes diagnosis and the rest of my life.

Today I go to my first counseling session to learn how to eat, test, etc.  But last night I got a call from the doctor’s office giving me some test results.  My A1C was 11 and some change.  Straight type 2 diabetes.

I wake up in the morning with a meter reading in the neighborhood of 250.  Yesterday, I took my meds and my levels dropped to 164.  I thought I was going to pass out.  “Low” blood sugar is considered anything below 70.  So…at more than double what is normally considered low I start experiencing the symptoms of hypoglycemia.

God only knows how much damage I’ve done to the various things that diabetes affects.  Vision, nerves, organs…  I have no idea how many years I may have taken off my life, or the consequences I will suffer going forward.  But the truth is, I have more immediate concerns.

250 feels normal to me.  Truthfully, it actually feels a little low.  So, I have no idea how I’m supposed to get down to 80-120.  I only know that I cannot remain sick, and weak, and unable to function.  So, I am hopeful that these medical people can help me get to the right place without feeling like I’m dying.  If they can’t…then I already know what I will do, having been well acquainted with myself for some time now.  I’ll “try to eat better”, and go back to normal living without the sodas and candy.

The biggest thing that this entire period of illness has made me aware of, is how much time and energy I’ve wasted on things that don’t matter.  It has made me cognizant of a fact we all mumble but perhaps don’t really think about.  That being, that tomorrow is promised to no one.  So, if I have to choose between living a shorter life that is more full, and living a long, empty, sick one…that choice is easy to make.

I am not going to let this condition become the focus of my life.  This is not going to turn in to “The Diabetes Blog”.

I am going to focus my life on friends and family.  I’m going to put making money in its’ proper place on my priority list.  I’m going to spend more time with my kids, and with my wife.  I’m going to call friends more often.  And I’m going to make sure that the people who are important in my life, know it.

Past that…screw it.  I grew up believing I’d die before I turned 21.  I’ve already been around twice as long as I expected to be.

So I will take the steps needed to reverse this condition…to a point.  But, I am not going to walk around feeling like I’m about to die every minute of every day so that some meter says what some person says it should say.  At the end of the day what truly matters is that I can move, and speak, and function.  You know… live.

The truth is we’re all dying.  We started dying the moment we were born.  So I think it’s more important how you live, than how long you live.