Charlie Lehardy

That’s something I like to say a lot. That I learn something new every day. The other part is that I tend to forget 4 or 5 things, but that’s another story…

However, this past week I think I’ve learned at least 20 new things each day. With this new diabetes thing I get to work with, I have all KINDS of things to learn. How to check my blood sugar level (I’m getting really good at that since I’m doing it 4-7 times a day :-), how to give myself insulin shots (only done that 5 times so far, so I’m not as good yet) and what kinds of things I can (and can’t) eat.

For that eating thing, lets just say I’m finding more foods that I CAN’T eat, than I can so far Actually, that’s not really true, there’s a lot of food that I can eat, I’ve just gotta be fairly careful. See, I’m trying to avoid carbs since diabetes (for those that may not know) is a condition where your body doesn’t make enough insulin (or no insulin at all). Insulin is used by your body to break down sugars and of course, carbs are sugars (complex or no, they all break down to sugar eventually).

From what the doctors can tell so far, I’m obviously not making enough insulin, but I am making some. What this means is that my body has a hard time breaking down sugars and making them usable to me. And THAT makes my blood-sugar level go up. Right now it’s hovering around the 200-350 range, depending upon what I eat and such. So, I’m taking insulin to help my body out some and get that level lower. Exercise will drop it more, so I’ll be starting on some sort of a routine soon (I hope) too.

But, I’m also having to watch what I eat and try and get things more under control that way too. Mostly I’m trying to keep the carb intake to a minimum, so bread, potatoes, rice, most fruits and anything sugary is all “bad”. Obviously this rather limits my diet a bit, and I’m supposed to have some of that to keep a healthy diet, so there’s lots of experimentation going on too.

For instance, pizza isn’t bad at all as long as I don’t eat the crust because there’s not too much bread. Well, that’s the theory anyway. The reality is that Papa John’s pizza isn’t very good for me, at least no the hand-tossed crust. Thin might, but we’ll have to see. However, most canned soups are just fine because there’s very few carbs, but there’s tons of sodium, so I’ve gotta be careful of that (never good to have tons of sodium in your diet).

Anyway, the main thing is that I’m doing MUCH better. I have energy, I’m able to work again, getting my diet worked on and this is all treatable. The insulin is annoying, but do-able and it may not be for that long anyway, it just depends upon how my body does with this as we go on.

Lastly, I do want to thank everybody for your prayers and notes. It’s been great to know you guys are out there, praying for me. I know that God kept me safe on Monday when I was doing so badly and I know he’ll keep me safe as we go on. So thank you.

But I figure it’s about time for me to write again, especially considering what has been going on with me the last couple weeks and culminated yesterday. For the last couple weeks, my mouth and eyes have been very dry and as time has gone on, it was getting worse. I also was urinating a LOT (6-10 times per day), but because of my dry mouth, I was also drinking a lot so I figured that’s all that was.

Well, I found out I was wrong. On Sunday, I realized that I’d lost a bit of weight lately (15 lbs or so), which is not good. I had a doctor’s appointment set for Tuesday (today) at 9:40 AM, but I was feeling pretty bad on Monday (couldn’t eat much and was very weak) so I called my doctor and asked to get in Monday if possible, which they agreed to after hearing what I said I was feeling like.

I left work at 1:00 PM because I was feeling so bad and went to the doctor at 4:30 (after sleeping some) and after they asked some questions, they decided I probably had diabetes. So they ran some blood-work on me and gave me a quick test for diabetes (one of those little portable machines). The machine just came back saying my blood-sugar level was high, but wouldn’t give a number. But from that, the doctor knew I had diabetes and so now things have been going quickly to get me stabalized.

Apparently the weight loss was from losing fluids and me drinking juice (orange juice) didn’t help because it’s so high in sugar (VERY bad for a diabetic). So in the end it turns out that my blood sugar level was 949. Basically, 150 and higher means you’re probably diabetic. Over 400 isn’t very good and 949 means you’re in VERY bad shape (maybe even hospitalized).

But now I’m in fairly good shape, I’m working on a diet to help things get more stabalized and am now taking insulin once a day. I’ve also gotten my blood sugar level reduced by half or so (460 vs 949). Plus, I’m taking a lot of sodium to help me retain water better. So yeah, things are doing better now, but obviously not great. I was in such bad shape that it’ll take a while to get this taken care of.

So, what’s what’s been up with me these last couple weeks. Great fun! Certainly something new that I’ve never had to deal with before, but the good news is that I’m OK now and am getting better.