I've worked out two days in a row. I'd like to say I've broken some kind of personal record in the recent weeks but, I always manage to get at least 2 days together. It's that third, fourth and fifth day that elude me. We'll see what is in store for tomorrow.
I have a Doctor's appointment in a week and a day. Nothing like that looming ahead on the calender to get your butt in gear for the mad dash to try and budge the scale at least a few pounds downward, especially if it has been about a month since you've seen her last.
I was diagnosed as a diabetic about 9 years ago. The very next day, my father died (ironically enough due to complications of diabetes). Let's just say I went all ostrich and buried my head in the sand for the next near decade. Oh sure, I came out a few times, tried to get my life back on track... the motivation would only last a month or so. The weight is so much harder to come off when you have Type 2 Diabetes, and while it is not impossible of a task, it was impossible for my mind set at the time. So, in to the sand my head would go again.
What brought my head out of the sand this time? Pain. I've always had nerve pain in my feet. For those of you who don't know me, well I would rather go into labor with another child than deal with this neuropathy in my feet. At least I know that labor would be over at some point. But with nerve pain, the burning, stinging, tingling, prickling, numbing fire that lays just beneath the surface of the skin is ever present and ever constant. I knew that my feet had been hurting worse over the last few months, worsening by the day. I also had no prescriptions for nerve pain medication because I hadn't seen a doctor in quite some time. So while going through some old boxes from when we moved to this house back in August, I found my blood testing kit. I took my blood sugar and it was 375.
I cried.
I've never had blood sugar that high, even when I was diagnosed. I cried because of how I had completely worsened my condition by not doing anything about it. By not realizing the seriousness of this disease, or by not caring how serious it is. I think you can go into a diabetic coma at 400. Heck, I don't even know! That's something I should know. Needless to say, I made an appointment the very next morning. (Beginning of April).
So in addition to an A1C of 9.6 (which is better than the 11.4 I tested at a decade before), I have teensy weensy high blood pressure. Too low levels of good cholesterol and too high levels of bad. No surprise or shocker there. My medicine cabinet looks like a pharmacy. I remember as a kid and adolescent, looking into my parents medicine cabinet, and not finding normal things like Tylenol, Bandaids, Antibiotic Ointment ect, but pill after pill bottle of things I had no idea what they were for. It looked like a pharmacy. When we traveled, my parents always had a travel bag set aside for medications. And not a little one that you could fit into your purse or duffle bag but a bag of it's own to keep both their medications in. I wonder if my brain accepted this as normal and so now that I'm an adult, I have followed in that same path. My medicine cabinet looks like a pharmacy.
I remember Dr. Hanna telling me I was a diabetic but that I was young enough I could manage it and most likely put it into remission. Like it was some sort of cancer only I had the power to heal myself of it. I wish I would have listened. Just add that to my list of regrets in life. Let's hope that I can get myself on track that at least the second half of my life will be healthier and longer than my first half.
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