Living With Diabetes
Living with diabetes was something that I've known for a long time would probably happen. My mother found she had it back almost 30 years ago, and if it runs in your family, chances are that sooner or later you'll be diagnosed with it.
It was mid December last year that I started feeling the first of the effects - I started feeling more tired than I usually was. My diet hadn't changed and I was still getting the same amount of rest, I just felt I wasn't getting as much out of a nights sleep. It was about a week later I started realizing that yeah, I was making a lot more trips to the bathroom... Well, I'd read enough about diabetes over the years to know what those bathroom trips were telling me.
Like I said earlier, this was the middle of December and the holidays were in full swing, so when I told my wife that I suspected diabetes, she said, "l'll make you an appointment with Dr, Lewis", I shook my head and told her, "I'll keep an eye on things - if I don't get better, I'll call after the holidays are over." I really didn't want this to happen and was really hoping it would just "go away".
A number of things kept going through my head. First off, I'm a private pilot and all I could see was my medical certificate heading into the nearest wastebasket. That, along with the daily injections of insulin that my mother took for all those years... I've never cared for needles and the thought of going through that every day turned my stomach.
With all this going on, I was at least smart enough to get a blood sugar monitor and start tracking my blood sugar level - the first one I took told me more than I really wanted to know - it was 553 - which was "a little high" (normal BS readings are around 70-120) Okay, so it's a little high - The holidays are over and now I can get back to my regular diet... So, now I was not only a diabetic, I was also in denial! I went back to my "normal" diet (and of course was cutting out as much sugar as I could) but even with that, the lowest I saw it go was around 275.
Well, the holidays had come to an end and I wasn't getting any better, so I called the doctors office and made an appointment. Diabetes is something they don't mess around with and they told me to come in later that day. The nurse took the regular vitals and a quick blood sugar test. Finally the doctor came in, reviewed everything and proceeded to give me the news.
Yes, I was now "officially" diabetic. Well, that confirmed what I'd suspected, but the part I was dreading was next, how do I treat this? He told me he'd be right back, then returned with a bag full of samples, a drug called "Avantamet" take two of these pills a day. I looked at him, "you mean I don't need to start taking insulin injections?", "No, things have changed quite a bit over the years and we've caught this early enough that if we can get it under control, you'll probably never have to go that route", I felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off my chest, "I do have another question, being a private pilot, do you know if I'll lose my medical certificate?" He told me that he wasn't a flight examiner, but that if we get this controlled, I would probably still be able to keep flying"
To say I was happy would be a real undertatement - I was definitely on top of the world!!!
That was almost a month ago and I've had a few ups and downs since then (which I'll talk about in future blogs) but as for now, I'll call it a night.
For anyone out there who might want to talk about diabetes
(from a non professional viewpoint)
feel free to email me
instgtr@cox.net
Later!
Dennis
It was mid December last year that I started feeling the first of the effects - I started feeling more tired than I usually was. My diet hadn't changed and I was still getting the same amount of rest, I just felt I wasn't getting as much out of a nights sleep. It was about a week later I started realizing that yeah, I was making a lot more trips to the bathroom... Well, I'd read enough about diabetes over the years to know what those bathroom trips were telling me.
Like I said earlier, this was the middle of December and the holidays were in full swing, so when I told my wife that I suspected diabetes, she said, "l'll make you an appointment with Dr, Lewis", I shook my head and told her, "I'll keep an eye on things - if I don't get better, I'll call after the holidays are over." I really didn't want this to happen and was really hoping it would just "go away".
A number of things kept going through my head. First off, I'm a private pilot and all I could see was my medical certificate heading into the nearest wastebasket. That, along with the daily injections of insulin that my mother took for all those years... I've never cared for needles and the thought of going through that every day turned my stomach.
With all this going on, I was at least smart enough to get a blood sugar monitor and start tracking my blood sugar level - the first one I took told me more than I really wanted to know - it was 553 - which was "a little high" (normal BS readings are around 70-120) Okay, so it's a little high - The holidays are over and now I can get back to my regular diet... So, now I was not only a diabetic, I was also in denial! I went back to my "normal" diet (and of course was cutting out as much sugar as I could) but even with that, the lowest I saw it go was around 275.
Well, the holidays had come to an end and I wasn't getting any better, so I called the doctors office and made an appointment. Diabetes is something they don't mess around with and they told me to come in later that day. The nurse took the regular vitals and a quick blood sugar test. Finally the doctor came in, reviewed everything and proceeded to give me the news.
Yes, I was now "officially" diabetic. Well, that confirmed what I'd suspected, but the part I was dreading was next, how do I treat this? He told me he'd be right back, then returned with a bag full of samples, a drug called "Avantamet" take two of these pills a day. I looked at him, "you mean I don't need to start taking insulin injections?", "No, things have changed quite a bit over the years and we've caught this early enough that if we can get it under control, you'll probably never have to go that route", I felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off my chest, "I do have another question, being a private pilot, do you know if I'll lose my medical certificate?" He told me that he wasn't a flight examiner, but that if we get this controlled, I would probably still be able to keep flying"
To say I was happy would be a real undertatement - I was definitely on top of the world!!!
That was almost a month ago and I've had a few ups and downs since then (which I'll talk about in future blogs) but as for now, I'll call it a night.
For anyone out there who might want to talk about diabetes
(from a non professional viewpoint)
feel free to email me
instgtr@cox.net
Later!
Dennis
posted by Dennis at
11:01 PM
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