Last Year

Like many people, I am overweight, didn’t get enough exercise and loved sweets. Last May I decided that I wanted to go on a diet and get my BMI down to 18.5–24.9 from a BMI of 34. For the first six months I was losing very little weight and then around August I started losing one or two pounds a week and I thought, once you get the hang of dieting, it’s easy… just use a smaller plate to cut down on the portion size. Then in September I started getting a dry mouth and I got a little concerned, but I read on one of those sheets that they give at the drug store with your prescriptions and one of them said that it might cause dry mouth, mystery solved. Then in October, I started peeing all the time, waking up in the middle of the night two or three times to pee. But I wasn’t alarmed because I’m taking a diuretic and I always had to pee at least once during the night, this must just be the result of the diuretic. I also was drinking a lot of water, ice water, the colder the better. It must be because I’m peeing all the time.

In December, I went up to the family cottage in New Hampshire for New Years. It is a three hour drive and normally I can make it without peeing, but now I had to stop two times on the way up.

In January, I started getting very tired and weak. I didn’t want to get out of bed or make any meals… I now I started getting worried, so I made a doctor’s appointment for the morning of January 16. The doctor had me get a whole set of lab work. In the early afternoon, my doctor called and from his tone of voice I knew something wasn’t right. He said my blood sugar was 500. I didn’t really know what that meant, but as I said from his tone of voice, it didn’t sound good and he said “Get ye to your endo immediately!” Well not in those words, but that how it sounded to me, so I called up my endo and told her that my GP said my blood sugar was 500… “Oh… can you come in in a half hour?” Now I was getting worried, it didn’t sound good that she wanted to squeeze me in so fast.

I was up at the hospital at 2 and by 3, I was on insulin. When she said I had to take insulin, I said OK it just another pill. Nooo, she said it is an injection. Ugh, I could never give myself a shot. I pictured a number 4 gauge, three inch needle. No way was I going to stick myself. She got the auto-injector with a ¼ inch 32 gauge needle and told me to inject it into my stomach; I closed my eyes and did it. It turned out not to be so bad.

So started off on 10 units of Levemir. She also showed me how to take my blood sugar readings and gave me a meter. When I came back in a week, she looked at my readings and had me start injecting myself with Levemir twice a day. The following week, I emailed her my readings and she said that my blood sugar levels were coming down nicely. I also had an appointment with a nurse to make sure I was doing everything right and that I understood what I was supposed to do (I thought it was kind of late to do the training, since I was giving myself the injections for two weeks already), the following week I met with a nutritionist and we reviewed my diet and what were good foods and what were bad foods. It turns out everything that I liked was bad food and everything that I hate is good food.

Early last month, my endo had me stop taking Levemir twice a day and just take it once a day, but she started me on injection of Victoza once a day, 1.2 mg. Just last week, she had me start cutting back on the Levemir by 2 units every two or three day and boost my Victoza up to 1.8 mg. once I’m off of the Levemir she wants me to email her my readings.

In early March, one Saturday I woke up and turned on the television at the foot of my bed and put on my glasses, and everything was blurry. I took off my glasses and I could see the TV… Hun? I picked up my Kindle and I could read it without my glasses… Whoa, what’s going on here, I wore glasses ever since elementary school. I was one of those kids that were called “four eyes” and now I didn’t need glasses! I email her [Just an aside, I was seeing my endo for another medical reason for a number of years and also we are part of a consortium of therapists and doctors who are trying to educate other doctors for the reason I was seeing my endo for originally. Also she is an APRN] and she said that it is normal for eye sight to change. So it’s off to the eye doctor to get a new prescription for my eyes… 200 dollars latter, a new pair of glasses.

Also at last week’s appointment she said she didn’t like the way my kidney functions was heading and she is sending my medical records to a nephrologist. On my appointment summary sheet it say, “CKD (Chronic Kidney Disease) Stage 3, GFR 30 – 59 ml/min” when I Googled it, I became scared, the seriousness of having Diabetes sank in. Getting your blood sugar under control is one thing, but all of the other side-effects are starting to pile up and it is downright scary.

So now you are up to-date. What the future brings is anyone guess.