Every Post Could Be My Last

Yeah, I know I've been complaining lately about the lack of interaction with my real or imagined readers. But this isn't about that. No, really. No, wait! Don't leave!

You left, didn't you? Fine. Then you don't get to read my very serious post about very serious things.

Waiting in the wings are posts about heart disease and alcohol, but I thought I should solidify my reality to bring absolute clarity about my current health. I've been truthful with all of you. My everything is broken to some extent. It's all being monitored by doctors and controlled with medications. Alas, that doesn't discount the idea that I could quite suddenly kick the bucket.

"Gee, Rob. You're such an incredible ball of happiness today. What's got you in such a good mood?" 

Easy there, Captain Sarcasm. But I'll tell you. I recently watched a video from the Weird History channel about 2020, and it seemed like EVERYONE died. Not from COVID. These people just died. Some of them not all that much older than me. When you consider that I'm a 55-year-old man living in a body that functions as well as an 80-year-old man, the risks become apparent.

There's a little more than that. It was a discussion I had with a podiatrist some years ago. (I think I've already mentioned this, but if you think I'm gonna reread my every post to find it, you got another think comin'.) I mentioned that diabetics tend to live an average of 10 years after a major amputation. After a thoughtful pause, he agreed with me. October will officially make it four years since my left foot had to be removed. So... Maybe six years left?

I don't know. My current PCP believes I can beat the odds because I'm taking much better care of myself than other late-stage diabetics.

But he's also aware of something relatively new to my list of complications. It's a fun little problem that comes with advanced diabetic neuropathy. I don't always feel my blood sugar dropping. I have gone as low as 55 without feeling any symptoms. Remember my tale about passing out that one and only time? Imagine my glucose already being so low when I finally notice it that stand to get something to raise it, but by that point I don't have enough sugar to continue functioning. Down I go. "Rob's face, Floor. Floor, this is Rob's face." I suppose I could try to get a service dog that can sense a diabetic's glucose levels, but I don't have the maximum price of $25,000 lying around. (Besides, I don't have the means to care for a dog.)

I have a few tales of low blood sugar, but one that stands out is when I was being hospitalized and woke in the middle of the night. Rather than ring for my nurse and have her eventually come to my room, I sought her out. We went straight to the nurse's station, where she checked my glucose. I was a whopping 34. She saw the result, looked up and me, and asked, "How are you still standing?" 

That was 22 years ago. Things change in an aging body, and not usually for the better.

A fact that bears repeating is that the brain needs glucose to function just as much as it needs oxygen. I live alone. If I pass out from hypoglycemia, it's officially coma time. Without fuel to keep everything inside me fueled, coma time would become... Well, dead time.

Forgive me a moment as I turn into something of a drama queen (king?). After only four people responded to a birthday request, I got depressed and decided to run an experiment. I temporarily suspended my Facebook account (where us old fogies still hang out) and waited. I stayed off for longer that 30 days so they wouldn't think I was merely in Facebook jail. Care to guess how many people called, messaged, or came by to check on me? Zero. Some of them noticed my absence, but didn't do anything about it. They just... let it go.

My FRIENDS made that choice.

Y'know what taxes my beleaguered psyche about that? Some of my friends love me, and the rest seem to at least like me. They laugh at my comedic posts and comments. If I write something heartfelt, they respond with the "care" or "sad" reactions. So with my silence, was I missed or not?! I feel like I had become Schrödinger's human. (Okay, what is that? Sometimes it happens when I c-n-p, and sometimes it just happens because. That's it. Just because.)

I'm not harping on that. I'm simply pointing it out. And, hey! If I DO die and go unnoticed for a while, I should be lighter to carry out of my apartment, what with decomposition removing a little of that unwanted weight.

Silver linings, people. 😉

Okay. News shared. Drama played out. Let's all take a deep breath and appreciate this post's blatant lie about who my wife is this time.

This is Monica Barbaro,

AKA "Phoenix" in

Top Gun: Maverick.

Yeesh. Yet another "wife" who's young enough to be my daughter. I should be ashamed of myself... but for the sake of the silliness of it all, I'm not. 😛