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Text of the page (random words):
becoming like me just a work in progress becoming like me just a work in progress home about jump to navigation alive january 19 2007 posted by becoming in uncategorized 3 comments yes i m still alive perhaps barely i m less healthy by any yardstick than i was 6 or 7 months ago but i survive and maybe i m finally prepared to act numbers april 30 2006 posted by becoming in becoming worse 3 comments i m starting a new category with this post becoming worse because that s what i ve been doing for the last couple of weeks i could summarize things quite accurately by saying if it was good for me i didn t do it and if it was bad for me i did it my progressive exercise program has transitioned from walking twice a day to walking once a day to stationary biking once a day to basically nothing as i experimented with taking less and less insulin and finding that doing so did not immediately send my blood sugar levels skyrocketing i gradually convinced myself that i didn t need any at all it was a small step from taking no insulin to doing no blood glucose monitoring and with that check on my body s response to what i was putting into it out of the way i began to feel more and more at liberty to indulge all those food cravings that had never diminished about the only thing i haven t done is start smoking again and to be frank in the past couple of days i ve had some cravings along those lines for the first time in months i m getting very much out of control and the effects while somewhat subtle are significant enough to already see here are the numbers my surgery was on 15 march 2006 about six and a half weeks ago i weighed about 305 immediately after surgery my weight went as high as 315 due to edema i came home at 299 and watched it steadily drop with the assistance of the diuretic hctz down as low as 281 this morning it was 291 6 two hundred ninety one point six and no that s not some sudden abberent overnight spike it s been edging back upward a little bit almost every day for the past three weeks or more my blood pressure has also been going up daily during these last couple of week or so as high as 190 over 118 my cardiologist had made some changes in my hypertension medication recently but i strongly suspect that my food indulgences are more to blame i have to regain control either that or i should simply tell lara that i ve decided being lazy and bingeing on all the wrong foods mean more to me that trying to get healthy enough to be around for a few more years it s extremely frustrating intensely depressing and how have i always dealt with emotional turmoil by feeding my fat face i have to stop but it s as if i don t know how to stop which to anyone else i m sure sounds like a cop out i feel that i m reaching a critical point in a gravely serious situation i cannot afford to ignore this to back burner this if i go on auto pilot i know what the outcome will be back in the saddle again april 21 2006 posted by becoming in becoming productive 1 comment so far well it s been just over two weeks since i ve taken the time to write here they ve been a very busy two weeks probably not so busy that i couldn t have found the time but i kind of promised myself no recriminations if when something like that happened the thing is so much has happened that it s going to be difficult to even summarize it all so what comes next is going to be more of a strange sort of highlights reel going back to work on monday the 10th was nice several coworkers expressed some genuine sincere really glad you re back sentiments some others felt more comfortable going the route of good natured kidding it s about time you got back or some people will do anything for a few days off it was all appreciated it was very pleasant to sense that i had really been missed and even that my absence had raised some awareness of just how hard i worked there of the volume of work that i did two months or more ago i had been promised that just as soon as circumstances allowed i would be transitioning away from my responsibilities in human resources and payroll into a new role it no not it eye tea the magical enchanted land of information technology for me in many ways a dream job basically since about the time i bought my first real computer a very used very bare bones 286 with a 40 mb hd and not enough memory to run windows 3 1 i have realized that i love working with computers the more knowledge the more skills i acquired the more i enjoyed time at the keyboard i revelled in the fact that i was virtually entirely self taught but when i did finally take a couple of programming classes at the u of a it felt like coming home to a world i had never seen before so on the 10th i was more than anxious for the transition to begin and more than a little disappointed that it did not commence immediately more fingers uncrossing april 5 2006 posted by becoming in becoming healthy add a comment no call back from the cardiologist s office this afternoon contrary to their promise i ve decided that i m going to go to work tomorrow for a little while mainly i feel the need to just begin getting reoriented there i probably won t stay for more than two or three hours the task of moving from my old office into the new one which was almost ready to happen mid march will have to wait a few more days though if all goes well i m planning to return to work more or less full time on monday the 10th i ll round up some guys with strong backs perhaps that day hmmm i just realized monday will be exactly one month since the last full day that i worked it s about time the needle and the damage done april 5 2006 posted by becoming in becoming healthy 1 comment so far i don t like shots i m a manly man though and so i put on my poker face when i know i m about to receive an injection of whatever if there s time a preparatory deep cleansing breath often i ll opt to watch the insertion rather than looking away still bottom line don t like em therefore the prospect of injecting insulin into myself four times a day every day for the rest of my days holds no appeal for me neither does spending well over two hundred dollars a month for insulin and syringes shelling out 130 per month just for testing supplies is more than sufficient in short i want to un diabetic myself at the very least i want to become a non insulin dependent diabetic is that too much to ask before my heart surgery i had never been told by a healthcare professional anything like your blood sugar is a little high you d better keep an eye on that and as part of various blood work done for various purposes in the last six years or so i have had blood glucose checked on average at least once or twice a year no so far as i know on march 16th i was a diabetic on march 14th i wasn t i ve tried more than once to discuss with my endocrinologist the long term possibility that regular exercise plus significant maintained weight loss could equal insulin independence but he does not even want to talk about it so i ve decided that i m just going to do it it s something that i m going to work at until i achieve it and once i do achieve it that s a very special type of independence that i m never going to give up again i m up to walking 20 minutes twice a day now and i will be increasing that progressively i m struggling some with portion sizes and late night snacking to keep the weight loss going but right now i weigh approximately 20 pounds less than i did a month ago i am also looking into nutritional supplements that have demonstrated the potential to increase insulin sensitivity e g chromium vanadyl sulfate and alpha lipoic acid i have begun taking fish oil for omega 3 essential fatty acids and evening primrose oil for omega 6 efas i ll discuss more my personal supplementation program as it develops and changes for now one little tidbit keen h et al treatment of diabetic neuropathy with gamma linolenic acid diabetes care 16 1 8 1993 this was a year old british study of 111 diabetics to whom daily doses of 480 mg of gla one of the omega 6 essential fatty acids were given the study concluded administration of gla to patients with mild diabetic poly neuropathy may prevent deterioration and in some cases reverse the condition fingers crossed april 4 2006 posted by becoming in becoming healthy add a comment today could be a big day a very big day for me yesterday i went in to have blood drawn for some labs my cardiologist had ordered he made some changes in my medications last week and i m guessing just wanted to see that those changes were doing what they were supposed to today is my first follow up with my surgeon actually i m hoping it s with dr counce but i recognize i might be seeing one of the other doctors with whom he practices whatever the case i am hoping to get a clean enough bill of health to return to work if he gives me the go ahead i m ready to get back in the saddle a s a p tomorrow even more than ready bad things can happen april 3 2006 posted by becoming in becoming healthy add a comment a friend who visited yesterday after listening to me go on and on about my desire intent to become insulin independent asked what would happen if i just stopped taking insulin i did not supply him with a particularly good answer so i did some research before i share the results let me try to provide a little perspective the current consensus is that the formula for diabetic complications is diabetes time complications what this means is there is a much higher potential of a diabetic becoming diagnosed with one or more complications over time still the evidence to date shows that excellent control of blood sugar and the maintenance of an active lifestyle go a very long way in preventing and or slowing down the onset of diabetic complications it s estimated that more than 15 million americans have type 2 diabetes but as many as one third of those who do more than five million don t know it and therefore aren t treating it the consequences of untreated diabetes are bad things studies have shown that up to 60 of adults with diabetes have high blood pressure and nearly all have one or more lipid abnormalities such as increased triglycerides low hdl cholesterol or elevated ldl cholesterol if you have diabetes you re much more likely to have coronary artery disease vascular disease such as atherosclerosis hardening of the arteries or peripheral arterial disease pad a heart attack and or a stroke diabetes can cause kidney disease nephropathy high levels of blood sugar make the kidneys filter too much blood all this extra work is hard on the filters after many years they start to leak useful protein is lost in the urine having small amounts of protein in the urine is called microalbuminuria when kidney disease is diagnosed early during microalbuminuria several treatments may keep kidney disease from getting worse having larger amounts is called macroalbuminuria when kidney disease is caught later during macroalbuminuria end stage renal disease or esrd usually follows in time the stress of overwork causes the kidneys to lose their filtering ability waste products then start to build up in the blood finally the kidneys fail a person with esrd needs to have a kidney transplant or to have the blood filtered by machine dialysis the longer a person has diabetes the higher their chances of developing diabetic eye disease retinopathy if left untreated diabetic retinopathy can lead to blindness prolonged periods of high blood sugar levels cause damage to the small blood vessels in the retina at the back of the eye these blood vessels initially become leaky and then may become blocked off this causes hemorrhages spots of blood and exudates proteins from the blood vessels on to the retina it may also cause swelling known as oedema of the retina people with diabetes are 40 more likely to suffer from glaucoma than people without diabetes the longer someone has had diabetes the more common glaucoma is people with diabetes are 60 more likely to develop cataracts more whining avoidance april 2 2006 posted by becoming in becoming healthy add a comment alright in retrospect that last post sounded pretty much like whining during the first couple of days post surgery even though i did seem a bit mentally foggy which still seems to continue to a degree darn it i consciously resolved to stay positive with regard to all this new crap in my life already this has proved to be not an easy promise to keep to myself but i am convinced that giving truly my best efforts in that endeavor are crucial yes there are a heck of a lot of foods that i m really going to miss i m going to miss at least initially the sensation of fullness that comes from eating as much as i want i can already tell that portion control is going to be something of a struggle what i must focus upon is that i can still enjoy cooking and eating many old favorite dishes and techniques are things i m now going to have to avoid but there remains a world of possibilities out there i must take it as my personal challenge to find new favorite dishes new techniques new flavor combinations with which to reward my palate i can do this i have a partner who s very open to culinary exploration i m a pretty darned good cook and i love learning new things i have considerable resources at my fingertips i e in my bookcase and know how to reach a vast wealth thereof online it s time to wrap up the mourning and get to work older posts search admin controls log in september 2026 m t w t f s s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 jan recent posts alive numbers back in the saddle again fingers uncrossing the needle and the damage done fingers crossed bad things can happen whining avoidance a foodie s lament my own march madness part 5 categories becoming healthy becoming productive becoming worse uncategorized archive january 2007 april 2006 march 2006 bookmarks wordpress com 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