Finding a way to make it fit..... diabetes that is

 

I’m starting this on the advice of a friend…..

Finding a way to make it fit

Diabetes that is, into my life not my life to Diabetes. That was the light bulb turning on advice I was given by the diabetes educator. She said to make diabetes fit into my life not change my life to fit diabetes, which was what I had started to do after the diagnosis of doom.

It has been a month and some change since the “diagnosis of doom” that came out of the blue…. But not really when I look back on it. Here is some backstory, I have hypothyroidism , I’ve had it since the birth of my daughter 21 years ago. So I know a thing or two about how my body feels when my thyroid is out of whack. Over the summer I started with the hair loss… enough to make a wig… super dry skin, feeling sluggish and tired ALL THE TIME, and the weight gain was nagging me. I was a smoker… I know shame on me, so I stopped which in turn meant I stopped chewing so much gum which lead to dry mouth I thought from my thyroid medication which meant I was drinking more, mostly water, so I was using the restroom more….. Ect. Ect. Ect. All of which like I said I thought was due to my thyroid. Diabetes did not even cross my mind.

So in September I make an appointment with the doctor thinking we will get the results, the TSH will be a little high, we will adjust my medication and bam we’re all good. Not so lucky… my TSH is 17.9, accepted range for normal is 0.3 to 3.5…. see the problem…. Mine was 5 times what it should be. So the doc ups my prescription, says come back in two months so we can see what your level is at, have a good day and adios. Fast forward to November 14, time for my fasting lab before the follow up appointment; things seem to go as usual, leave some blood with the lab vamps, head to work, normal day. Then I get a call from a nurse asking if I can come back for a re-draw, seems my blood sugar was high… sure I can do that :/ I go back when I get off work, have the blood drawn and find out my BS was a whopping 435 for the first drawn. Holy cow!!! Now because I had diabetes when I was pregnant with my daughter… yes the same one that whacked out my thyroid… and because I am a CNA and have worked with students with diabetes, I know that BS is way to high…. Not put you in the hospital high but to high for me. So I am freaking out in the lab at the clinic. I wrangle myself in and figure “oh this is a mistake… what the heck did I eat that threw the test off so much???...” I also find out that my thyroid had not gotten any better, it had gotten worse in fact. Anyhow… I go home worry that maybe all those symptoms were not just my thyroid but…… do I dare think it…. Diabetes?? … No, not me. I gained weight, oh wait I had been losing a few pounds… like 15… in the last few weeks. OH CRAP ON A CRACKER, I had diabetes!!!!! I knew it in back of my mind before I got the confirmation the next day.

“Diagnosis of Doom” day, November 15, 2013. I anxiously awaited a call from my doctor to tell/confirm the news. I waited…. And waited…. And waited, when noon rolled around and I had not heard from the doctor or a nurse I started calling, and got nowhere. So I took matters into my own hands. I have a friend at work that has diabetes and I knew he had a glucometer with him. I wanted to know what my BS was before I ate anything….476…. SAY WHAT? That was all the confirmation I needed I now knew without a doubt that it was true…. Diabetes and I were about to become the best of buds. But I still needed the doctor to confirm this for me. The exact timeline of calls and events has already become fuzzy but for the sake of my story I’ll say that I got nowhere with my clinic, my stress and frustration went to the moon and I ended up going to my sister-in-law Brandi and best friend Jennifer’s clinic in Temple to see a wonderful PA, Mr. Parker, who confirmed it for me. He was so nice and compassionate that it wasn’t the death blow I thought it should be….. if you had been witness to the snot pouring, face puffing, ugly girl crying that had ensued before my leaving work… yes work… you would understand that I thought it was going to be the end of the world when I got the news. I did not accept this with open arms. I tried to explain it away and deny it. “Oh my thyroid is wayyyyy off so it has affected my BS, and I’m taking antibiotics and that can raise your BS… right???” But Mr. Parker just smiled and said no I’m sorry, but you will be ok. He kindly gave me a glucometer, a prescription and told me to follow up with my doctor ASAP. I was on my way home when I got a call from MY doctor’s office saying “oh hey the doctor has sent in a prescription for diabetes medication to your pharmacy and upped your thyroid medication too. And you need to keep your appointment NEXT week” Needless to say I AM NOT HAPPY with my clinic at this point and I rectify that when I see the doctor the following week.

I like to be a compliant person in a lot of things… my health now being a must. That being said I put the iron fist on my carb intake because to many carbs leads to high blood sugar in my life now. BOO!!! I LOVE CARBS, carbs of all kinds and flavors… pasta, rice, fruit, pasta, bread, chips, pasta, crackers, the occasional cookie or scoop of ice cream… did I mention pasta? The reason I mention pasta is because it is the lead character in my first emotional melt down. My 21 year old is away at college and had called to chit chat on a Saturday afternoon, the topic of my birthday came up and what kind of cake I could/would want to have. The thought was slightly depressing but we moved on to other topics, like Thanksgiving dinner which is right around the corner and that her Tia and I had to go grocery shopping for the feast. While shopping with my sister in law points out some very low carb noodles in the produce section. Oh heck yeah noodles!! Pasta!! I am so having spaghetti the next day. So I make sauce the next morning (minus the tomato paste which makes a difference and add to the disaster) and put it in the crock pot to slow cook the day away. I decide to made “cloud bread” should be called crap bread cause it was awful! I think it was my fault it came out so bad but still it was yuck and did not help the melt down at all. Dinner time rolls around and I cut open the bag of noodles (that is packed in water I need to point out) and this horrendous odor slaps me in the face. It smells like some type of fish. I don’t do fish unless it is the tuna loaded with mayo, onion and relish kind. But back to the fishy pasta…. I now have my doubts about it but am determined to try it so I cook it up, serve it and sit down with the hubby and Bean; both of whom have wonderfully beautiful regular pasta and ooey, gooey cheese bread. …. And take a bite of the worst thing on earth and proceed to burst into the ugly girl crys!!! My guys are stunned into silence. Where once their forks were happily clinking away now there is a void of noise, I think the TV even went mute at my outburst. I hear my hubby ask what’s wrong to which I rather loudly respond that “I AM MAD, DAMN IT I’M JUST MAD!!!!” He asks if I am mad at him and conversation goes something like this…

“NO I’M NOT MAD AT YOU I’M JUST MAD I’M MAD CAUSE THIS PASTA TASTES LIKE SHIT AND I WANNA EAT REGULAR PASTA AND IF I WANNA EAT REGULAR PASTA I SHOULD BE ABLE TO EAT REGULAR PASTA AND IF I WANNA EAT REGULAR RICE I SHOULD BE ABLE TO AND IF I WANNA EAT….( insert any number of carb heavy items here) I SHOULD BE ABLE TO BUT I CANT AND THAT PISSES ME OFF SO IM JUST MAD!!!” My wonderful son says “Mom just eat it so you’ll be happy”, awwww if only it were so easy my child. To the credit of my hubby he just said we will figure it all out and if I want it to have some, just a little, but to have it. I was not ready to be placated and shoved my plate away and cried some more, a little quitter this time so they could finish eating. Then I grabbed a piece of that cheesy bread and that was my dinner that night!! I felt better somewhat after that and feel a little better each time I tell that nugget of madness. Kind of like saying out loud that I’m mad makes it ok to be mad, because it is ok to feel that way. Life as I had lived it before came to a screeching halt on November 15 and I have to find that new road to travel, right now it feels like a dirt road that gets rained on every other day so it keeps changing on me, but I can see the asphalt ahead I just need to get to and through the gravel first.

Ms. Pyatt, the diabetes educator at my clinic, threw me the life preserver I needed but was denying myself. She gave me two pieces of advice that saved my sanity. One is at the start of this story, She said to make diabetes fit into my life not change my life to fit diabetes and the other is that I needed to loosen the iron grip I had on my carbs because I was eating to few and that was causing a problem its self. We went over portions and good carbs, how many carbs I should have a day…between 160 and 180…huh? I said that’s to much but she broke it down and we agreed that I would get at least 150, a number I was comfortable with and try for more since I had only been eating 85 to maybe 105 carbs since diagnosis of doom day. Ms. Pyatt was kind and helpful in so many ways. She eased my fears and helped me understand that it’s ok to eat all the things I did before, as long as it’s no bigger than a tennis ball.  So I’m gonna eat that pasta that I bawled over and enjoy every savory noodle when I do.

Shoes to ponder

Athletic shoes, or tennis shoes as I call them, whoever really gave stitching and structure much thought?? Certainly not me, until I bought a new pair. I happily spent a half hour looking over the selection and trying on a few until I found one that I liked the color of and the fit seemed good in the store. I make my purchase and head home. The next morning I put on my purdy new tennis shoes before work and walk downstairs to finish my morning routine. That’s when it starts, I can feel a problem with the shoes. There is a seam that is rubbing and I know that’s not good. So I guess my shoes have to go back to the store…. And this makes me mad because I shouldn’t have to worry about a seam rubbing my foot. But I do because of the result a blister could cause….. like the loss of a foot… no thank you! And here is another of those changes in the road again.

The reason I will be a freak about blisters on my feet is justified by this, I have seen an amputation come as a result of a blister. My ex father-in-law was diabetic when I first met him in 1987. He got a blister on the bottom of his foot in 1992 from a pair of shoes. Now let me say that noncompliant should have been his middle name. So he in no way helped himself out of a bad situation. He did not go to the doctor to take care of it, and the wife did the best she could. The blister seemed to get better but what happened was the infection went into the bone and by the time he relented and was seen by a doctor he lost that leg from just below the knee down. He is now compliant but complication just pile up and I don’t want that in my future. So no shoes that cause blisters!!