me'n'diabetes

Okay.
The truths as I know 'em:

1. Nobody lives forever. Personally, I'm hopin for a big cardiac in my sleep like the rest of 'em. Odds are fairly good that it shall happen that way - I smoke, I'm overweight, I'm kinda sloth-like. I expect to deteriorate faster than those who are not diabetic, and maybe slower than those who have illnesses I am not intimate with, and about the same as anybody else who may contract any other debilitating disease. Cancer could take me out within two years, a bus could take me out in a matter of seconds. Its a matter of perception there.
2. Doctors and others have asked me, incredulously, "don't you want to live long?" Define long. I mean, at 15 I never expected to see 25, at 20 I never expected to see 30, at 25 I doubted 40. I'm almost 40 now, and I'm thinking 50ish is good. Good enough. Diabetic or not, most of my life I have lived with an uncertain self-appointed future. I am like most of the masses - headcounted but not making a grand difference - or one that can be measured beside someone else that has "achieved" in the eyes of the rest of the masses. I'm sheep-like, I follow my own path and think it is unique and it is, unique to me. I've made small differences like everybody else. I don't see what I'll achieve - either by my own yardstick or anybody else's - by living to 80 and beyond. I achieve on a daily basis, so do you.
3. Food is here to stay. I'm never on a diet, I make sure I eat a protien with a carb and will eat most of the protien first before the carb because I learnt how my body rolls food around in my veins. I still like chocolate, I still like salt. I don't care much for eating alone, and sometimes fast food is the only thing I can really think of. I either make food in a big pot and eat out of it for a few days or I'm having a sandwich or something else that will take within 15 minutes of my labor or I'm flipping once in the oven for a heat'n'eat or I'm not caring for anything I have in my cupboard/fridge and so I commit a drive-by-fooding. I don't drink and I don't do dope and I think fast food part of my entertainment and it takes care of a basic need - to eat.
4. Exercise doesn't cut it for me. I hate the smell of gyms, the sound of sneakers on hardwood, and the comparisons which I know will go on - if not within myself, then with anybody else in the gym with me. Enough said. I mean, I don't want to walk around in circles for an hour, I need a purpose. Today, fer instance, where I was all over this town and in and out of stores and hefting cat litter and canned goods around and such...I don't tire from that even if it is tedious. It is necessary, and so I do it. My job doesn't demand anything from me physically, which is something I miss from the casino days. If there were a reason to do something - and I mean, get something accomplished besides ripping through sneakers - then perhaps I would do it. Put a dollar at the end of the stick and I'll seriously consider it.
5. I read about those monkeys that have been "cured" of their diabetes, and a few people stateside who have had an operation on their pancreas (I think - its been a few years since I read about them) and their diabetes is gone. I have hope that perhaps there is a cure...and that if not for me, then for others that follow me.

I see so many points in my life swirling down the toilet that it really doesn't make much of a difference anyway - that's a whole other post that I may or may not get to - and I don't see the point of pushing for 80. So much sadness, so much struggling, so much indifference...so little companionship, so much time spent alone already, and so much work at getting some small achievement done - the crafts, the art in my head, and another day put in at work. The depression and anxiety that I deal with on a daily basis and have done so for the past 15 years...I'm sure that will take its toll along with the diabetes. For instance, today I got really wierded out geting my fasting blood test done (I usually opt for a companion during this but who is there anymore?) and then came home to eat and then set out again, only to experience another panic attack in the grocery store and had to come home for grounding. And that was just today...I have these struggles on a daily basis. Things I try to explain to doctors and really is nobody else's business...this daily inner scream which is on the verge of becoming a puddle of me spewing tears. The addiction to prescription drugs that my doctors both know about but admit there is little else for me - to replace or fix or heal without experiencing much more pain that my spirituality will contain and console. I've hung by a thread on a yearly basis - and beside that monster, the diabetes really takes a backseat, where it is going to be anyway, idling and slipping and chipping away at the edges, whether I put more conscious effort into "controlling" it or not.

xoxo
lili