Living with Diabetes

I was reading a book that talked about making acceptance as the first step before you start dealing with tough things. The idea is to accept the truth. You have to step up and accept what is true and then you can feel bad about it and then start making a plan to get the better of it. I think I have accepted diabetes. But probably not had the stage where I voiced my dispair over yet. I still end up at time very despondent as to why I was given this GIFT in my life.

I am terrified with the idea that my diabetes can eventually lead to a limb being aputated. Check out this new latest article on how some of them can be avoided - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32542672/ns/health-diabetes/

My family, mainly my wife, has been the pillar of my support structure. In the last few months she herself is having her issues and the kids are demanding more time as they grow up, so recently most of her time was taken away and my support structure crumpled. So now I am beginning to realize how much I need it and wondering how I should setup a new one. Some ideas swimming in my head - 1) Make sure that the structure is not sitting on just one pillar. Like anything else in the world, there needs to be redundancy. I think having four pillars will be ideal. Still need to know who will be these four pillars. 2) Make sure that the support gets stronger as time goes by. So need to acknowledge and keep visiting the shortcomings of the structure. Needs regular maintenance. 3) Know that everybody needs it, so be willing to be other people support pillars. Give back what you get.

I was hoping that this summer I will be able to exercise and reduce the fat around the belly. But as we end this summer, I am still where I started. I am not as commited to this weight loss thingy as I should be.

It is starting to cool down in Seattle. I guess Summer is already nearing its end. Along with the cold in the night, I start to get numb fingers. It is quite annoying. I hate the feeling of waking up in the middle of the night and finding numb fingers or sometimes the whole hand. I tell myself to shove them in a blanket or under a pillow to warm them up, but in the back of my mind I am always thinking, is this the start of nerve damage that I hear about from all other diabetics? It is a major stress in the back of the mind that I keep bottled up. After having discovered eye damage last year, I am always just a little scared of when and where the nerve damage is going to strike me. Irrational fear, but that is what it is. My favorite, I guess I can call it that, site to read up on this is the http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/neuropathies/ site. If you can fully trust the governments word, which I sometimes do with a grain of salt, you can read up this information. I am always worr...

A lot of diabetics struggle with the inclusion of fruits in our diets. We always tend to associate fruits with sugars as they are sweet and they do have a very sugary taste. Due to this a lot of my diabetic friends tend to avoid fruits at time. I think that is a big mistake. Fruits are and should be an essential part of the diet. They are loaded with so many goodies like fiber, vitamins and minerals. It would be a shame to miss out on the natural sources of these and keep trying to supplement with other vitamins and minerals. The resource I use for checking on my fruits is the Glycemic index database avalable at - http://www.glycemicindex.com/ This site gives me the information on how much the serving size for the fruit is, you do not want to loose track of the carb counting. It also tells me how soon the sugar will metabolize in my system. The sugars in the fruits is fructose and it metabolizes a little differently.