I met my best friend here in Florida in a roundabout way through Match.com. I'm going to call him Pete. Pete is a musician, and I met a friend of his, who we'll call Mark, on Match.com not long after I moved to Florida the second time. In Mark's profile photo he wore a "College" shirt like the one Belushi wore in Animal House. I love a guy with a sense of humor. While we weren't ever romantically involved, Mark was funny, and an all-around good guy. He told me that I had to meet his friend, Pete, who played guitar and sang at a pub on Saturday nights.
Pete and I share a similar sense of humor, intellect, and comedic timing. I have to admit, there was a time when I thought we might be compatible enough to date, but early on in the friendship he assured me (rather out of the blue, I might add) that we would never date because he always wanted to know me. Flattering, right? And, though somewhat disappointed at the time (and convinced that his declaration was based solely on the fact that I was fat), I've enjoyed our friendship immensely and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
A year ago, on June 23, 2010, Pete called me to let me know he was in the hospital. He explained that he'd had some back pain in the days prior, and that there was no position in which he could lie to find any relief. He finally surrendered and had his girlfriend take him to the emergency room. Pete's gallbladder had to come out. Before they could do the surgery, though, they had to get his blood sugar under control. His blood sugar was somewhere between 300 and 400. For those of you who don't know, an ideal blood sugar reading will be somewhere between 80 and 120. It can be higher based on what you ate and when you ate (in relation to the test), but it should never be over 300. Pete was diabetic. In addition to that, his triglycerides were off the chart - something they called hyper-lipidity. His blood sugar remained high, and it was at least three days before the surgeons could remove his gallbladder.
Something about Pete's hospitalization put me into an introspective funk. I couldn't help but think about the fact that Pete and I ate similarly, and that neither of us went to a gym or dedicated any specific time to exercise. For most of 2009 and into 2010 I had noticed that there were times when I could nearly fall asleep standing. Waves of exhaustion would hit me and, if I was at home, I would simply give in to it and take a nap. At work I would use three teabags in eight ounces of hot water and try to wake myself up with caffeine. I knew something was wrong with me. With no health insurance and an inability to pay for a visit to the doctor, I told myself it was just because I was getting older and not sleeping as well at night. I am a very light sleeper - small noises wake me up. So to be able to fall asleep at a desk at work in the middle of the day was a coup for me... or, as was the case at hand, a disturbing alert that something was seriously wrong.
On my way home from work on June 25th, I stopped at Walgreen's to see how much a blood glucose meter would cost. I found one for $13.99 that included 10 test strips and 10 lancets. Later that afternoon, in the privacy of my bedroom, I opened the box with the test kit and read everything to make sure I wouldn't mess up the test. Like most days, I'd eaten a late lunch and washed it down with a Coca-Cola. I'm pretty sure I tested my blood sugar less than two hours after I ate lunch, but regardless of the timing, my reading popped up on that little screen and the number, 386, knocked the wind out of me and confirmed what I had suspected: I, too, was diabetic.
I wept, finally realizing the extent of the damage I had done to my own body. I felt the magnitude of what was about to happen and the great amount of change that would have to take place immediately. I got online and found out that the exhaustion that I'd been feeling - that inability to hold my eyes open and absolute need to lie down - that was me on the verge of a diabetic coma from drinking Coca-Cola every day, sometimes twice a day. Coca-Cola is fine in moderation for people who are not diabetic. But for an undiagnosed diabetic it can be catastrophic. It is amazing that I didn't have a major medical event happen to make me wake up and see what was going on.
Today is exactly one year after I found out I was diabetic. This morning I weighed in at 218.4lbs. A few weeks ago, on June 1st, I weighed 229.6 - about ten pounds less than what I weighed on June 25, 2010.
At the end of May this year I realized that my 1-year Anniversary of Knowing was approaching... and a lot has happened in the past 12 months. What hasn't happened in the past 12 months is any significant weight loss. While I am now medicated for diabetes - I take glyburide and metformin - there is a very real chance that, if I lose this excessive weight, I will also lose the diabetes.
I don't want to be an insulin-dependent diabetic if it is at all possible to avoid it. I still don't have health insurance - I couldn't afford to be an insulin-dependent diabetic. But I have clearly lacked the self-control necessary to lose weight without some sort of assistance or ongoing inspiration... and I will tell you all about my latest weight-loss plan, and why THIS time is going to be different, in my next post.
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