Living with Diabetes

MorBefore I had to deal with Diabetes, I always was a little gung ho about life. I felt like you needed to enjoy and live the way you want to since life was to be enjoyed. Then I discovered I got diabetes. Funny thing, with diabetes the chances of you knocking off the earth are so much higher. But my philosophy began to change. Now that I knew that my chances for survival are lesser than the average man, I actually worried about what I would be leaving behind. In all fairness, I also had my daughter at the same time. So a combination of events made me realize that yes, we are all going to die. But instead of having a ball for myself, I started to think about what I leave behind for others too. So I discover that being selfish my not be the best way to be when you die. Not that I have changed much in the last 5 years, but atleast I have figured something out :-) Now for the actual changing part...whew....

Last couple of days I have been feeling a odd sensation in my left arm. I feel some small aches in the chest area too. If I am distracted I do not notice anything, but otherwise I can get worried. I am wondering if I should just go in and get tested even though it might just be gas os something? Maybe it is all in my head. Having diabetes is such a pain sometimes. I get worried going to sleep since I read that a lot of diabetics die a silent hear t failure death in their sleep. I am sure this is just plain paranoia and am hoping that writing it down calms my nerves some.

In two small works - I FAILED I was a miserable failure. By the second day I had forgotten all about being positive and was wallowing in negative emotions. I keep struggling to come out of it, but not yet successful. Then last week I saw a movie, FIREPROOF. Excellent movie and very motivating. I am trying out the book. I have done the first day and am feeling positive. This is a 40 day course compared to the seven day diet. I think this time I can do it.

Lately I am noticing a connection between the weather and my disposition. The clearer and Sunnier the weather, the better I feel. I had not noticed this before. I wonder if this is a result of the medication and the advancing of diabetes. It could also be that I am on vacation and am noticing the weather now. When at work, the outside weather has very little bearing on how you are doing.

Yesterday I woke up to a morning fasting sugar of 70. I have not seen a number that low ever in my diabetic life. I was excited that I must be doing something right to get my numbers in this great range. I had a momentary day dream of me being almost non diabetic :-) Then out of the blue I worried. What if this is dangerous. Should my sugar be going this low. What if it kept going lower while I was sleeping and I would not have caught it. Funny how being diabetic ends up giving us a hard time even when good things are happening. Anyway I told myself to be happy and had a great day.

I seem to hear this word a lot these days. I wonder what would constitute being stupid? Is it stupid to know that you are diabetic but still eat a candy bar in one sitting? Is it stupid to eat like a normal person and hang all hope of sugars on medications? Is it stupid to experiement with extremely low amounts of carbs in your diet? Is it stupid to hang all hope for a cure on the stem cells? Is it stupid to not keep on dwelling on the past? Is it stupid to crave a nice donut once you know it can kill you? Is it stupid to not have gotten your self checked regularly? I just feel stupid today!!!

I have a big cold. My nostrils are fully stuffed and I am unable to breathe. I hate the inability to get a good nights sleep with continuous draining down the throat. Also do not like the body aches that accompany a cold like this. And not to mention the high sugar numbers. I am thinking about taking some Glyburide to help ride it out.

So this is the first Monday of the year and I come into office all sure that I have started off the year with my resolution to loose weight. And what do I want into, a temptation island. There is leftover goodies from all people. It is hard to walk around the office without running into someone or the other offering candies etc. So I stop to walk and sit in my room with the door closed. Then I printed something and walked over to the printer and BAM there are goodies next to the printer. Everyone seems to be wanting to get rid of their own temptations and what better way than to offer it to the rest of the world.... I am clinging on the last threads of internal strength.

Well 2009 is here. It is time to take a look at what happened last year and what is coming up for the New Year. Last year was interesting, I started on more medication and got a much better control on the A1C. But I also discovered eye damage starting the in the eyes and discovered that I need to add some more testosterone into my system. My muscular strength increased, but my eight went up too. I was happier but discovered that my whole disposition towards being negative is hampering everything in my life. I have simple desires from the coming year. First, I want to loose atleast 10 lbs in the year. I am starting the year at 184.6 lbs. I will need to be careful of what I eat and exercise more regularly. Second, I want to be happier. Now this falls into my desire to be more positive in life. Not sure what all I need to do, but I am making an effort. I wake up and tell myself - "I choose to be happy." A simple statement, but it lets me know that being happy is my choice., Nobo...

I continue on the journey to becoming a positive person. The last week I had more than one meltdowns, but they were lesser in number and were lasting for shorter durations. It is weird to analyze your own negative meltdowns. It seems to start like a deep rumbling in the bowels of my mind. It starts to swell and burst up into the forefront. When it hits the surface it seems to be traveling so fast that there is no stopping it. I have tried to stifle it, but that never works and it blows out later. Best is to let it come to the surface and have it pass. I try to remove myself from the situation if I can. If not, I focus my mind to something religious. It is weird but the process of turning positive is also making more more religious. Funny how that seems to be related.

The book has 170 tips for folks dealing with Diabetes. It is very much a low level reference book that is a good addition to any library. A lot of this information you see in there is easily available on various websites, but then this is a nice and neat compilation available to look up when ever you need to. I like the idea of having this book to quickly check on questions that arise as I deal with my diabetes. The thing with having a disease like diabetes is that you never know all about the disease at any one time. Various issues/complication arise over time. It is nice to have a source to look at questions. The book is not going to answer your questions in detail. But it sure is a nice place to start. The book is well organized and finding the answers to the questions is simple as looking at the index. I would recommend the book to all diabetics who are relatively new to the disease. It is a good package to keep handy when odd things come up related to the disease. You can always s...

In one of my last few posting I talked about going on a seven day diet for the mind to turn some of the negativity around and enter the realm of a positive thinker like Dr Peale. I have tried to go on the diet about three times and failed miserably. But like King Bruce and his spider, I refuse to give up. I started it back up again on Monday and seem to be doing better. Still not as good as I can be, but I think that is the whole point. You have to keep practicing till it becomes second nature. Key thing I have learnt is that you cannot controls the negative thoughts from popping up, but you can dictate how much time you spend thinking about them

Got my quarterly checkup done. A1C is 6.5. I am happy that it has stayed the course. Was hoping for something lesser, but no reason to complain. The doctor saw a rise in weight gain and I was wondering of I should get off the glyburide.

Lately I have noticed that I am becoming a ball of negative energy. My thoughts and my actions are a lot more negative than positive. I am beginning to feel like a person who is a perpetual grouch. So I decided to take back my life from this negative well. I decided to follow the metal diet as prescribed by Emmet Fox as in - http://www.alchemylab.com/seven_day_mental_diet.htm I started it on Friday. The day tunred out to be excruciatingly hard. I had a humongous headache at the end of the day. Saturday morning, I ended up fighting with my wife early in the morning and that took me back deep into my negative self. So as Emmet says, I abandoned the plan. Now I have taken a couple of days off and watched myself and my reactions. I realize that I always feel like I am getting the raw deal in every thing, which is not neccesarluy true. Today I restart the diet again. Will keep the blog updated on how it goes.

Metformin - 2 tablets, one with breakfast and one with Dinner Glyburide - 1 tablet each morning with breakfast Simvastatin - 1 tablet at dinner time. MultiVitamins - Once a day Testosterone cream - once a day Fengreek seeds - A tsp soaked in water overnight, eat first thing in the morning. Quite a list considering that I was not wanting to take meds. The future is still murky. Will I be eating more or less in the coming years. Basic common sense tells me that it will probably go up unless I keep the rigid schedule going. The old positive thinker wants me to believe that I will be off the prescription stuff.

The holiday catalogs have started bursting in through the mail. They are of all shapes and sizes this year. I get attracted to the ones with baskets of fruits and food. Each time I look at them, I see carb laden stuff everywhere. I sure wish someone would make baskets targeted specifically for Diabetics.

The candy...That was way more scarier than any of the costumes. There was candy everywhere and for a former addict like me, it was hell walking with the kids in the mall. I just bought myself a starbucks grande iced latte with soy milk and sipped it as I walked along. I can say that I survived the holiday with eating just one piece of candy. I am so proud of myself.

I sure did not. Saw it mentioned in one of the mails I received from the blog and went out to see what it was all about. I think I am pretty savvy and mostly aware of what is going on, but for some reason I never saw this. Must be all the glitter of the Presidential race going on around me that did not let me see :-) Anyway, so here we are, it is the month for folks like me and most of my readers. What shall we do!!! I have decided to blog each day of this month. Yup that is a lot of stuff I need to think about and write about, but I beleive it will be a good thing. Here is an official link to the diabetes month - http://www.diabetes.org/communityprograms-and-localevents/americandiabetesmonth.jsp?WTLPromo=HOME_flash_102908adm

Last week I had decided to start the process of loosing weight. My weight had been steadily creeping up. So I started watching what I eat. Did not stop eating all the sweets in the house, but cut them down. I exercised everyday. But then on Monday I checked the weight and I had gained one full pound. I was dumb founded and not sure what to make of it. So I started thinking back to what I had had. On Saturday I had gone to a birthday party and on Sunday we had a couple of friends over. I started to think back what I ate there. Nothing jumped out till I remembered the Paneer. Yes, the Indian cheese. I have blogged about it before too. It seems to have a big impact on me. I had eaten some pieces of paneer on both the parties. Now I know what caused the rise in the weight. I will watch out as there are more parties happening the coming weekend. It is the start of the holiday season and time to get things in some sort of control.

I wake up to my best number in years - 106. I go to the gym. Come back, have a nice breakfast. Check again after 2 hours - 85 I have not seen a two digit sugar number is ages....I am all jazzed up and guess what.. The destructive self is wanting to intervene. My brain is suggesting that I go for a nice subway sandwich on the garlic bread.... I should be going for a salad instead....