Here's mine: I have a family history of diabetes. All the women in a straight line in my family -- my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and her mother before her. I've watched it over the years do different things to these different women. Swore I wasn't gonna let it get me. So I eat right, watch the starches, walk just enough to keep it at bay. That my weight was not where the doctors would like so far hasn't been an issue, my fasting blood sugars are right in range at my checkups. Up until now, things are OK.
My Mom was diagnosed with diabetes about my age. For thirty years, she has been able to manage it with diet and the oral form of medication; in her case, it's Glucophage. She is almost obsessed with monitoring, due in no small part to my grandmother, who was an awful diabetic: ate what she wanted, would have spikes in her blood sugars, she also had peripheral neuropathy (loss of feeling in the nerve endings) which resulted in small cuts and abrasions (she couldn't feel them) taking two years to heal and three-times-a-week visits to the Wound Care Center. Mom is still doing well, although it is becoming harder and harder to control with just the pills. She is concerned about possibly starting insulin, but after thirty years, she has fought the good fight. Diabetes is manageable if you manage it.
My ex-husband (David's dad) has been for the most part, a crummy diabetic. Diagnosed at 18, with no family history of the disease, it was a shock to him and his family. Especially at that age, don't we all think we're invincible in our late teens and early twenties? When I compared him and his actions to what I knew about the disease, it didn't line up all nice and neat, but I married him anyways, love doesn't always let you think straight. During the course of our marriage, I saw how his 'management' of diabetes could cause problems. It wasn't the cause of our divorce, however.
After he and I divorced, and with a child involved, I began to coach David on things to do if 'this or that' happened while he was with his dad. I'm sorry to say that over the years, David has seen some of what I saw back then.
In February of this year, I got a phone call early one morning from my exH. He had been admitted to the hospital the night before. An infection of some type, possibly a spider bite, had taken hold on his big toe (he has peripheral neuropathy as well), and it had gotten seriously infected. Not wanting to see the doctor, he thought he could take care of it. But it was so far gone by the time he found it, and then waited some more while he self treated it, by the time he went to the ER, they admitted him, gave him high dosages of antibiotics, and after another couple of days told him they couldn't save the toe. It was amputated two days after he was admitted into the hospital.
David has been just about as aloof as one could be about this whole thing. That's to be expected to some degree, teenagers don't like to talk about stuff like this. But as a child with both sides of the family prone to diabetes, it's something I watch in him, too. He thinks the problem is solved as the infection has been cut off. Of course, it still leaves a wound, that will still need to heal, and his dad still can't feel anything, so if he's not making regular doctor visits, well, it could be a vicious circle. All I can do is educate him.
But what it did for me was something else. A new resolve to not let diabetes get me. To do whatever it takes to not take pills or shots for thirty years, like my Mom and my exH. To do the best thing I can for my son and show him how to take care of himself so he doesn't have to take pills or shots for thirty years.
Thank you Larry.
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