Oh yeah, I'm "Still Alive and Well ..."

Glucose meters

Yes I'm still here.. Despite the recent diagnosis of diabetes mellitus (type 2), the finger pricking, the insulin injections (& medication Metformin), and the associated change in lifestyle, I'm adapting .... slowly.

From a starting point of my 'A1C' at 15% and a blood glucose of 586, I'm now down to 8.2% (A1C) and my morning/fasting glucose measurements averaging 110. In fact just recently I had my first *low* fasting measurement of 67 (which I quickly got to 100 with a small glass of grapefruit juice).

The [hyperglycemic] effects on my brain & eyes have returned to "normal" (a matter of  opinion, I know..), and that's a relief! For a while I couldn't see well enough to do much of anything, and my brain was so *fuzzy* that I didn't feel like doing anything anyway. I've even regained some color in my toes although they're still constantly cold and cramp all the time (btw, is there such a thing as an electric blanket for just the foot of the bed?). I don't like wearing socks when I sleep, but I don't want to use a full-sized electric blanket.

I've just recently started to get back to checking my Twitter feed and posting comments occasionally but I'm finding that keeping up with email, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, News etc. in addition to the new health maintenance tasks is often too much. Energy is one thing that's in short supply but I'm taking advantage of it when it's available.

I have grown to appreciate & rely on some of the many 'reminder' utilities available for the computer to keep track of bills, appointments and the like. Multiple alarm clocks help too.

One of the things I pictured in my mind when I was told that I'd have to take insulin was filling a syringe from a bottle of insulin kept in the fridge. Thankfully I was started on something called a "Flexpen", which is a pen-like device prefilled with insulin. All I have to do is screw on a tiny disposable needle and set the dosage! It's really simple. The hardest part was choosing an 'injection site' and remembering where the previous one was until I made myself a chart/grid and numbered the different locations so I could enter the location into a log.

On a less positive note, once I started researching diabetes (and my other issues like hypertension and family history of [that], depression, and Alzheimer's/dementia), the clinical research paints a fairly bleak & uncertain future. The combined 'risk factors' I have are all interconnected it seems.

I'm thinking that I definitely want to get as much accomplished as I can, while I can.. That'll be a challenge for a serious procrastinator like me! 

Thankfully my father had a saying that I've been able to embrace, especially since he passed away. "Keep smiling" (whether you feel like or not..) was something he always told me when I left his home. That and the ability to laugh at myself are so helpful in my solitary existence (and I've given myself plenty to laugh at lately).

I truly wish that the feeling of community and compassion that existed all too briefly after the attacks on 9/11 could be regained. The divisiveness and polarizing atmosphere that just seems to have grown exponentially over the years since then thanks in part to the extremists on the right and fanned by insensitive, dishonest & dangerous rhetoric spewed by the likes of Fox News-(in name only), Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, the GOP, et al..

And I'll finish that thought with the failure of (the majority of) the 'media' to have the guts to truly do their job and point out the fraud & lies from the right instead of claiming some kind of  'equivalency' between the left and right messages. Bob Cesca says it well in his "Killing the False Equivalency 'Both Sides' Meme".