Good Days and Shitty Days

 

photo by Charles Earl

The day started off bleh when I got into the elevator of my apartment building as some dude with a big dog was getting off. The dog all friendly like made a little leap toward me but didn’t come near enough to bother me in any way. He was just friendly. Turns out the dude and dog were on the wrong floor, having pressed 19 instead of 18. So dude, (maskless, of course) gets back on the elevator with me and proceeds to lecture dog. “You’re in trouble, Booker, for jumping on the little old lady.” What. The. Actual. Fuck. My response: “No, you’re in trouble,” before dude and dog got off. Dude looked to be about 40 to me, but I can’t tell about ages. Anyway, there’s nothing wrong with being a little old lady and I’ll be proud to be one when I’m … 80…or whatever. Sigh.

The reason I was in the elevator was that I had a follow up appointment with my doctor today regarding the blood pressure medication she put me on last month. Hating cars, I take public transit to my appointments, which requires an hour outbound and an hour home to take into account possible snafus with Ogre Transpo, the local transportation authority.

So..back to the BP. All is going well, but my BP is a little low now and I’m having issues with instability when I walk or exercise, so she’s halving the dosage. Phew. It’s been frustrating to have to walk really slowly and also to do my fitness class with a need to hang on to a chair a lot of the time.

We also discussed the results of my last A1C on May 11, which was 8.1, after an AIC of 9.5 on March 15. She told me that while my results are impressive and I’m doing great stuff to manage my diabetes, I will still likely need medication. If I don’t get an A1C lower than 7 in August, she will put me on meds immediately, she said. I understand. It’s best to be realistic, but I walked out of there seriously bummed. I asked myself what am I even bothering to take care of myself if I’m just going to go on meds?

I have a horror of the meds. Metformin, the one that people are usually always put on at first seems to cause horrible side effects for many people, such as diarrhea. I know it is probably getting tiresome to hear, if you’re reading this at all, and I have no idea if anyone is, but the fact is my not having a colon makes me averse to even more liquid bowel movements. I have that typically many times, but it’s controlled, not random like diarrhea. I apologize for talking shit, but that’s an issue for everybody and for those of us without colons or with parts of our colons gone, it’s a greater concern. I do 200 Kegels a day in order to try to stop anal leakage, but it still happens. I don’t have anal sex anymore because I have to keep the sphincter tight, in order to avoid leakage or worse. So yeah, the idea of this med is scary to me and unpleasant at best.

Anyway, that’s me spinning. I have no idea whether it will happen. Maybe I’ll get an A1C below 7. My Freestyle Libre 2 and 1 sensors have both predicted A1Cs below 6 – 5.8 and 5.6. Also if I need meds I need meds. Lots of people with diabetes use meds and are helped by them. Finally I did ask that my doctor consult with an endocrinologist who knows what the fuck to do with patients with no colons before choosing the meds to put me on.

So I’ll try to stay motivated. The reason for my improving my diet and physical activity was not so I could stay off meds or to stop having diabetes. Diabetes is a lifelong condition. If I take care of myself, I will feel better and I will reduce the chances of having the long-term complications of diabetes: heart and stroke, foot amputations yada yada. In the short term, as Adam Brown has also focused on in Bright Spots and Land Mines, with these improvements, I have more energy, I’m able to focus more, I’m not as grumpy with people. That’s something to desire.

And if I end up with the shits, I guess I’ll have the shits, and then we’ll try a different med or a different dosage.

Another piece of good news is I don’t need to regularly test my blood with Nessie (the One Touch) anymore except for education purposes. And since I’ve got another 28 days on Neo (the FreeStyle Libre 2 flash glucose sensor), I can use that for education and just hold off on Nessie and her costly supplies until I find out the results of the next A1C test in August. I’m going to be a nervous wreck on blood test day. Regardless, I am now prepared for whatever. I have to tell you it was a tough day though.