Growing and learning . . .

I have started at least nine blog posts since I last published one. I have kept them all in draft form, tucked away for another day if they suit how I'm feeling at any given moment, but they weren't really what I felt like throwing out here to all and sundry at the time.


To be quite truthful, this has been a month of keen introspection about matters of my personal health. I'm fine. No need to jump to any conclusions at all. People close to me know that I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in early 2003 at age 49 and that I managed, through diet and activity to remain medication free until almost 2005. The threats of blindness, renal failure or amputation are enough to keep even the most avid food lover on a reasonable path of self-care. 


I confess, the unfairness of this disease was most bitterly ironic for me. I simply love breads, cookies, cake, pasta, and all other manner of carb-laden things. If it says caramel, toffee or butterscotch, I must have it. So I snivelled for a few days when I was diagnosed, then looked at the bigger picture. I wasn't a child being diagnosed with Type 1 who would be insulin-dependent all his life. I wasn't being told that I had a terminal illness with treatment that would make me sick while curing me. No. I was a Type 2 diabetic and I could take charge.


I lost 25 pounds and kept it off for a few years. I walked and exercised. My blood sugar numbers stayed in the healthy range and I felt great. When there were temptations of a food nature, I would have the tiniest taste, always asking, if there was choice, "Which one of those things is really worth me having a bit of?" 


Life was smooth and work was not stressful for the next few years, and I occasionally lost sight of the fact that I had diabetes because I continued to feel so well. At home we had gotten rid of junk food entirely, so the options for a snack around here were safe and sane - some raw almonds, fresh fruit or veg, whole grains, etc.


I was on medication, but only a preventative dose in 2007, when my sugars began to creep up marginally. I picked up the exercise some but soon got lazy. I went to the doctor and we revisited my three-month A1C levels, which were rising in tiny increments. "This disease is progressive, Cate. As we age, the same care-taking will not produce the same results and the pancreatic function needs some help." I took the new prescription and re-doubled my efforts to make good choices and move around more. All was well.


In June 2008, I retired after 32 years of teaching and plunged headlong into my new life with my wife, my dog, my gardens, our home renovations and my sugars stayed fine. We travelled, socialized, entertained as before. I was taking care of myself, mentally, physically and spiritually, and doing it on my time schedule - what a heady experience. 


Fast forward to autumn 2010. My weight had crept up seven pounds over the summer, and when the phlebologist came to take my blood in October, I was nervous about my numbers. I was right to be. Nothing drastic had made them jump, but there it was on paper. Up two points. Christmas? It's an emotional time; I gave up control for two weeks and ate a little of everything. January, with steely resolve, I began to eliminate all temptation and get on track, successfully for three months. But suddenly I was having hypoglycemic lows in the daytime where I never had before. Doctor suggested we drop one medication med and look at another. I was not even hungry during our Mexican vacation week, and lost 3 pounds while we were away. Surely, that was going to make things better?


I had blood work on April 9, and my doctor's office called me right away. There had been a major jump in my sugars and triglycerides. No wonder I was feeling so awful, even after a restful and happy holiday. "Cate," said the nurse practitioner, "It is progressing again. You're going to be 58 in August. Your pancreas needs help to do what it did on its own nine years ago." 


I'm a realistic woman. I wanted to know what my options were.


Two weeks later, and I have been trying a newly approved (two years) injectable, non-insulin medication called Victoza. It is working. My sugars are coming down and I am feeling much better. Initially, its side effects were not so pleasant and I was terribly nauseated for five days or so. I am losing weight because my appetite is diminished, but able to have small meals and portions all day long. My energy to walk with the dogs and work in the yard and garden is back. 


I do not feel defeated or as if my body has let me down. With this new, effective drug, I actually feel empowered to live well and healthily each day. I have such a wonderful life with Julie, Quin and the rest of my family. I want to have many more years to see and do the travelling and living each day that keep me so happy. Wish me well, won't you?

Even words take vacations . . .

Hey. I missed you, words. For the past month, I have been wrapped up almost totally in others' printed pages, lovingly savouring each phrase and sentence, digesting the images and sensations delivered by the careful placement of each piece into a passage. As much as I love carefully crafting prose, there is nothing more satisfying than reading and recognizing descriptions and unwinding the narrative from the pens and keyboards of those who also play with and earn their livings from words.


How nice of you to wait for me, words. I didn't have writer's block. My muse did not desert me. Indeed I wrote every day of the week we were in Mexico on holiday, finding much happiness in securing a little spot of shade under a palm tree near the pool and bar with a table at which to scribble away on the lazy mornings when the others went to town or strolled the beach. I more than exercised the depths of my creative self there, so the break as it were has come since returning.


It's not that I have been avoiding you. There are other things to do even when what I'd prefer is to play with you, words. It's a mixture of obligation and regret that have kept me away, for if I can't stay long enough to really let myself create, I might as well be occupied otherwise. It's not procrastination either. With you, at least for now, there are no looming deadlines or sputtering editors demanding rewrites. You are my forgiving, tolerant friends.


Words. I have missed you.