At age 50 I discovered that I had become a diabetic.
I didn't really realize what it meant to be a diabetic, only that my blood sugar level was "higher than the norm".
What I understand from the underpinnings of many subsequent consultations and conversations with my endocrinologist, is that once a diabetic, always a diabetic. My goal should be to control the blood sugar levels from reaching extreme highs. Yet in the course of D-days ( diabetic, that is), as I struggle to maintain some form of equilibrium, it can happen that blood sugar levels can drop precariously low as well.... So perhaps the right way to phrase it is that my goal should be to control the blood sugar levels from reaching extremes, highs or lows, period.
Sigh, the horror stories of severe diabetes. From possible blindness to amputation due to gangrene and cuts that wouldn't heal, from renal failure to kidney transplants to death due to multiple organ failure and cardiac arrest....
Sigh, the paradox of diabetes. Weight gain...is it a symptom or a result of the condition?
Sigh, the painful truth about diabetes, especially type II diabetes mellitus, is that while genetics encourages a predisposition to it, the diet and level of activity are the early determinants. So that now I was certified a diabetic, it really was pretty much of my own doing!
Of course, nearly twenty years of therapy and psychiatric medication pushed me along and helped the condition blossom. Of course, that my mother died at 87 of complications that developed from diabetes put me at risk for developing the same disease. Of course, that I eat as much rice as a construction worker after a hard day gave me more spare tires than a car had any right to have. Of course, that I drink very socially, and very anti-socially as well, helped raise the blood sugar levels. Of course, that for many years, the only physical weight training activity I undertook in my adulthood was raising spoonfuls of food and spirited highballs to my lips, and exercising only my options, gave me more curves than were considered ideal.
So I am told that to try to reverse the potential ravages of diabetes, to nip it in the bud as much as possible, to be able to live longer so that I can continue to be of use to this world, I need to make some major, drastic changes.
My mindset is first. Choose healthy, they say. Choose to move, others chime in. Choose to live, is the overall consensus. CHOOSE to be well!!
My diet is second. Choose fibre, they say. Choose fish and vegetables, sounds the vox populi. Choose low glycemic index, low sugar, low fat, low salt, low everything, my doctors concur.
My lifestyle is third. Choose sleep, at least 6-8 hours every night. Choose to walk, at least 10,000 steps a day. Choose exercise and activity over passivity. Choose sobriety, choose water, choose juicing.
And those suggestions are just the tip of the iceberg. There is more to learn, to know, and to be done to try to reverse the condition, if that were possible at all.
So today, I choose to be a recovering, rehabilitating, diabetic. My goal is to work so that I can stop being a diabetic or having the diabetic condition. I begin by acknowledging all my frailties and mistakes of the past...but I won't lose any more sleep over what might have been. I move up a notch to accepting that I have a condition, and while it is late, it is nevertheless, not too late. Yet. I graduate to committing to learn all I can about this confounded disease, to apply Sun Tzu's principle, "Better the enemy I know, than the enemy I don't know", and "To keep my enemy closer". I declare war on diabetes, and choose a life of demure delights over a life with debilitating disability. I choose to age gracefully, by signing up on my own intuitive intervention initiatives.
I embrace Day One.
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