Welcome. You're late to the diabetes party, but you're welcome here. (Your club card and membership jacket are in the mail. 😉) Especially because a lot of the nightmarish scenarios I've discussed are sometimes the inciting incidents that get you diagnosed with diabetes in the first place! You could be a diabetic for years, your beleaguered pancreas coughing up just enough insulin to keep you alive. You've chalked up all of the fatigue and general malaise you've been feeling as you simply getting older.
And then one day you find yourself hospitalized with a seriously infected wound on your lower leg or foot. You tell the doctors that your feet and legs have had some weird pains for years, but, again, you thought it was aging. This wound...? You didn't even feel it when you got it. But that kind of thing happens all the time to people, right?
Yes... to diabetic people.
You've been alive for decades, doing whatever it is you do, following a diet that's somewhere between that of an adult and a seven-year-old. Yes, you had a perfectly balanced meal for dinner last night. But now that you're an adult and can do whatever you want without your parents yelling at you, an entire seven layer German chocolate cake for breakfast this morning was perfectly reasonable in your mind.
Suddenly you're being told that the dietary habits you've developed for oh so many years have to be radically changed, and this... THIS is uncalled for! "Radically change my diet?!? I REFUSE!"
I get it. I really do. Because if you go back to my 13 July 2022 post, Diabetes: The Revenge!, you'll see that I reacted badly when the remainder of my life was explained to me at age seven. I was a child with the dietary habits of a child. I even had messy, childlike rituals for some of junk food. The two I recall most clearly were Hershey's with Almonds and Yodels, which was one of the many confections from Drake's Cakes.
The Yodels were cakes rolled with a layer of cream and coated in chocolate. My ritual involved peeling off the exterior layer of chocolate with my teeth, carefully unrolling the cake so I could lick out all of the cream, and finally dunk the remaining cake in milk.
The Hershey's with Almonds was artistry in terms of the mess I could make. I'd break off a piece and hold onto it long enough for it to melt in my hand. I would then lick the chocolatey disaster from my palm and spit out the almonds into my "clean" hand. This would continue until the chocolate was gone and I had a tiny handful of almonds, which I'd then devour while humming tunelessly, but happily.
I know. Gross. But this was what I did between ages five and six! If I was still doing that at 55, your concern would be warranted. Now I just eat the almonds along with the chocolate I lick off my hand.
I'M KIDDING! Yeesh.
My point is that I was so blindly enraged when I was told that all of my junk food had to be cut from my life at age seven, that I can fully empathize with how much more difficult that dietary change must be with decades of life piled up behind you.
There's a reason why I'm bringing this up today. Y'see, yesterday I was visited by one of the building maintenance men, Max. (Not his real name.) He's a Type 2 diabetic. He'd recently told me his Hgb A1c was 13.0. 13.0!!! And when he arrived yesterday -
"Rob? Quick question. What the heck is an Hgb A1c?"
Oops. How on Earth did I let that one slip by? No idea, but I'll start by pointing out that I may well be labeling it the wrong thing. When I look it up, it's "HbA1c." But somewhere early in my self-education, I learned it as "Hgb A1c," so that's how I'll be writing it in my posts. Note: I'll use both for my posting labels.
A hemoglobin A1c is a blood test that measures your glucose average for the prior three months. As a diabetic, your target is between 6.0 and 7.0. Thanks to my vigilance in controlling my diabetes, I haven't had a result above 7.0 for nearly eight consecutive years. My most recent result was 6.5. So when I tell you Max had a 13.0, it means his average daily blood sugars have been 350.
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Through our conversation yesterday, I learned that he'd had a Snicker's bar just before coming to my apartment. Although I made it humorous, I was pretty angry that he was thumbing his nose at the very idea of managing his diabetes. He takes two daily doses of a 24-hour insulin, but he doesn't cover his meals with short-acting insulin - it hasn't been prescribed to him - and he doesn't check his sugars before meals. Let's look at another A1c chart to get some perspective on Max's 13.0.
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What I told Max yesterday is the same thing I tell every diabetic under such poor control. I AM NOT A DOCTOR! TALK TO THE DOCTOR HELPING YOU CONTROL YOUR DIABETES! Because all I can do is express an opinion. Mind you, it's an opinion backed by 48 years of personal experience, but it's only an opinion nonetheless. What's more, I only know how to take care of MY diabetes. I wouldn't even dare to guess at the precise needs of another diabetic.
I can say this much: Max needs to be checking his glucose and taking a short-acting insulin per meal. How much is between him and his doctor, but I suggested that if he's not going to adjust his diet, he should at least learn to take enough insulin to cover the garbage he wants to eat.
Look, this blog serves two purposes. It let's me vent about my diabetes while simultaneously teaching other diabetics about about their illness the best way a layman can. It's why I stress that I AM NOT A DOCTOR. (See? I did it again.) You need to be talking to the person helping you manage your diabetes to refine your personal care. I've encountered too many Type 2's who simply don't care that they're diabetics and are casually dismissive when I try to explain the dangers of not caring. And if you're one of those kinda of people...? Well, I'd essentially consider you a 13.0, too.
Yes, I indirectly referred to you as being suicidal. Prove me wrong.
And now, no more dilly-dallying, the beautiful young woman, scantily clad...
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