Will's blog gave me a lot to think about. I decided to face my thoughts and emotions about diabetes.
I lived on the east coast when I was in my late 20s and would call my parents in Arizona every Sunday from a phone booth. One Sunday he told me he was losing weight. I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me yet. I just told him "that's great Dad". This went on several weeks and he always told me he was losing more weight and then he told me he was having problems with his eyes. It finally sunk in and when I called him the next Sunday he already was diagnosed with diabetes.
I always wonder why I have never had an emotional reaction for my own diagnosis. But I remember when my father was diagnosed I sunk into a horrible depression. I couldn't figure out why for a while. But later I realized it was the event that made me aware of his mortality. He was not invinsible. He was vulnerable in my mind for the first time.
Over the years I tried very hard to look after my parents. They depended on me for a lot of things. Everybody usually knows someone in the family designated to do that for the others. I always felt like I was stomping out fires to avoid the forest going up. My father developed heart trouble later. Diabetics are more vulnerable to that. There were times that I would get him to the hospital in the nick of time. We always worried every year that he would die.
My mom died unexpectedly. She always worried who would watch out for him and his diabetes if she wasn't around. The day after we buried my Mom he had a stroke. He then had a series of strokes. Diabetes is also related to diabetes. He eventually got very brain damaged from them. He was gone years before he actually died.
He had always been afraid of becoming an amputee. His worse fears came to pass. He lost part of his left foot but took it well. He ended up in a wheel chair and never was able to walk again because he ended up with his right leg amputated also. That broke all of our hearts. He grew more and more physically weak. It was tragic at the end.
I always try never to look at myself as chronically ill because I don't want my loved ones to feel all the pain that I felt as I witnessed my father's decline over the years. I don't want them to examine it and the proof of my mortality either. So I act as if it is one of many characteristics of me, which it is. They don't have an inkling about how it makes me feel physically and emotionally. But I am trying to figure out how it makes me fe4el emotionally. I have a mental block I think. I am not afraid of dying just living the way my Dad did. I try the best I can to take care of myself for those that love me most of all. I try to be tough but I am beginning to feel like I am also vulnerable.
Sally
Hello Sally.
ThomasI know you said your numbers are stable and I read about your trip to a blood sugar level in the 90’s… I wish you mean more. but I also get a feeling from your posts that you want to do more. So please don’t think of this as a I am doing better than you – its more of a motivational post to help you reach your goals.
First please realize that we are in a new era of diabetes treatment and management.
We have great control over the outcome of our future. I bet you and I both can actually become healthier, stronger and faster over the next couple of years. Or another way to put it, we can actually be stronger in 10 years than we are today or when I was first diagnosed. I know I already feel better.
Get your motivation from where ever you can.
• Fear of hurting those that love you
• Fear of hurting yourself like those that don’t control their diabetes do.
• While you are doing exercise – think this is the path of living the life you want for both you and your family. I often think about things like that while I exercise. I try to let my mind wonder and not think about the exercise. I just make sure I do it in a way that I don’t hurt my joints and muscles.
• The same can be made for food choices, think of you and your family.
As far as feeling vulnerable.. I also do. However even when I fall off the wagon the exercise I have done over the last 2 years and the way my body no reacts to foods – my numbers are fine.
I am just afraid of how long I will be off the wagon
These days I am more afraid of not getting that boxer type body and going to where I was than where I am.
If you do not have enough time to exercise today.. Please don’t reply to this in the form of a chat.
It would make me feel so much better to see some kind of exercise report from you.
It is really hard for me to think of myself of chronically ill because of this illness I am actually stronger and faster than I was in 2002 – I wish the same for you.
Its very to early to wish you Health and Happiness this holiday season.
Tom
10:20 AM EST