Today I want to tell you a little bit about me. After reading it, I think you will understand a little better why this quest has become one of my missions in life.
Yes, it's a personal tale - all true. Many of the things I will tell you, 99% of the females, and many males would never admit. But I want everyone to realize where and why I do what I do. If I can help even one more person to find a way to get out of the rut they are stuck in with either of these conditions (allergies or diabetes), then I know I have finally gave them hope. Because last year, someone gave me that hope. I am still using it to try to finish my quest.
Yes, I am a female. Thirty plus years ago I had emergency back surgery. While still in recovery, the physician kept repeatedly asking me a question. I didn't understand a word he said. I could just tell he seemed to be so Urgent with the question, I thought there was a problem but I was still too sleepy to care.
Turns out, the hospital I was at was a teaching hospital also. The normal routine after surgery, the "parts" removed, if possible, were always packed up and returned to the patient as a souvenir. Well, this physician, being the head of his department, wanted to keep my parts. It was necessary to get my permission though so they could be taken away and prepared correctly to prevent deterioration. He kept them anyway, hoping I would agree later to allow the hospital to keep them.
Why the urgency? I am a big girl - put mildly. My body, according to this physician, is bigger than anybody's he's ever seen in over 40 years of surgery. Why is that an advantage - to him at least. Because as I stated, this is a teaching hospital. They can teach and train all the new students the inner and out workings of the spine without even using a microscope. My frame is so large, the details so well-defined, a microscope is not needed. He was praying therefore I would turn down the offer of the souvenir!
Why is this so important? A large frame means extra body weight. I have always been about 100 lbs heavier than most people would guess. My entire life I have had people mention the scales must be broke. They are always so embarrassed when reading the weight because they were sure that number couldn't possibly be right. It always was!
So, being overweight to start because of bone size and then with the advancing years, tacking on more weight because of health problems, put mildly, I did rival the Good Year blimp.
Now, no I did not like this. I actually figured out at a very young age there was something wrong with all the members of my family. At this young of an age, everyone called it Diabetes. I was too young though to figure out what that meant, I just knew I wasn't going to get it. Oh the dreams and ambitions of preschoolers.
But, I was determined, my parents saw that. I was not going to get this disease which was ravaging my family, my extended family and even the people who lived in our apartment when we were kids. Yes, it is a lifestyle disease (type 2). But to a kid stuck in a poor environment, limited funds and only certain foods available to eat, I actually had no idea all my determination was for nothing because unless something major changed, I was going to get it anyway. I did, with a vengence.
Over a decade came and went. I now had it and it just kept getting worse. Doctor after doctor told me how, what and why I was to do certain things and it would help to slow the progression and help alleviate the symptoms. I became a one-man working machine to get rid of diabetes. Where did that end up?
Last spring, I was now on 580 units of insulin every single day, close to 150 lbs overweight (plus that extra hundred because of my large body frame, remember), I had no energy, my muscles and joints were in constant pain ( neuropathy), failing eyesight... there was just one long list of one symptom after another. And all I could think is I have spent over 50 years of my life now preventing this from ever happening. What a joke that was.
Check back next time and I'll explain how and where I did find my hope, my help!
Yes, it's a personal tale - all true. Many of the things I will tell you, 99% of the females, and many males would never admit. But I want everyone to realize where and why I do what I do. If I can help even one more person to find a way to get out of the rut they are stuck in with either of these conditions (allergies or diabetes), then I know I have finally gave them hope. Because last year, someone gave me that hope. I am still using it to try to finish my quest.
Yes, I am a female. Thirty plus years ago I had emergency back surgery. While still in recovery, the physician kept repeatedly asking me a question. I didn't understand a word he said. I could just tell he seemed to be so Urgent with the question, I thought there was a problem but I was still too sleepy to care.
Turns out, the hospital I was at was a teaching hospital also. The normal routine after surgery, the "parts" removed, if possible, were always packed up and returned to the patient as a souvenir. Well, this physician, being the head of his department, wanted to keep my parts. It was necessary to get my permission though so they could be taken away and prepared correctly to prevent deterioration. He kept them anyway, hoping I would agree later to allow the hospital to keep them.
Why the urgency? I am a big girl - put mildly. My body, according to this physician, is bigger than anybody's he's ever seen in over 40 years of surgery. Why is that an advantage - to him at least. Because as I stated, this is a teaching hospital. They can teach and train all the new students the inner and out workings of the spine without even using a microscope. My frame is so large, the details so well-defined, a microscope is not needed. He was praying therefore I would turn down the offer of the souvenir!
Why is this so important? A large frame means extra body weight. I have always been about 100 lbs heavier than most people would guess. My entire life I have had people mention the scales must be broke. They are always so embarrassed when reading the weight because they were sure that number couldn't possibly be right. It always was!
So, being overweight to start because of bone size and then with the advancing years, tacking on more weight because of health problems, put mildly, I did rival the Good Year blimp.
Now, no I did not like this. I actually figured out at a very young age there was something wrong with all the members of my family. At this young of an age, everyone called it Diabetes. I was too young though to figure out what that meant, I just knew I wasn't going to get it. Oh the dreams and ambitions of preschoolers.
But, I was determined, my parents saw that. I was not going to get this disease which was ravaging my family, my extended family and even the people who lived in our apartment when we were kids. Yes, it is a lifestyle disease (type 2). But to a kid stuck in a poor environment, limited funds and only certain foods available to eat, I actually had no idea all my determination was for nothing because unless something major changed, I was going to get it anyway. I did, with a vengence.
Over a decade came and went. I now had it and it just kept getting worse. Doctor after doctor told me how, what and why I was to do certain things and it would help to slow the progression and help alleviate the symptoms. I became a one-man working machine to get rid of diabetes. Where did that end up?
Last spring, I was now on 580 units of insulin every single day, close to 150 lbs overweight (plus that extra hundred because of my large body frame, remember), I had no energy, my muscles and joints were in constant pain ( neuropathy), failing eyesight... there was just one long list of one symptom after another. And all I could think is I have spent over 50 years of my life now preventing this from ever happening. What a joke that was.
Check back next time and I'll explain how and where I did find my hope, my help!
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