I must be getting old. I sit around talking about health issues all the time. And yes, this is one of those times.
So, after last December’s bout of stomach distress and going to the ER, where they determined I have colitis or enteritis (they never settled on which one), I had to follow up with a gastroenterologist today. More fun than anyone ought to be allowed to have, let me tell you.
The main thrust of the visit is that the doctor is concerned that my A1C is between 8 and 9. At this point, my body is not likely producing enough insulin on it’s own. They unspoken, veiled threat in that statement is that I will likely need have insulin injections at some point in the (potentially) near future. In the meantime I’m supposed to work with my primary physician to come up with a plan to get some supplement (like metformin) to keep things under control.
I have issues with metformin. It causes all the bouts of heaving my guts out non-stop. It also causes me to feel like I can’t eat enough food and I’m starving twenty-four / seven (24/7). After stopping taking metformin last December I’m finally getting to the point where I finish a meal and don’t want more food. And from empirical data metformin doesn’t seem to do anything in helping control my blood sugar levels. My primary wants to put me on a different drug but the stuff is so expensive I can’t afford it. Insurance is horrendously expensive at my age and does little to actually help. (My views on the futility of insurance are well known). And of course, I have concerns that any other drug she puts me on will also cause stomach distress.
The concern is that if I don’t change my ways, I could lose my eyesight, have a heart attack or stroke, have kidney failure, develop neuropathy, or possible amputations from bad circulation. Not to mention what happened to comedian Patrice O’Neal who ended up completely paralyzed before dying from complications of a stroke at age 41. As nasty as all of these are, losing my eyesight is the scariest as I would no longer be able to read my books. (Of course, half my library was purged in the move, so I don’t have them to read anyway. 🙁 ).
So, I must make radical changes to my diet to get my blood sugars down. The first thing is to jettison my weekly Dr. Pepper. It definitely drives my blood sugar up (which is why I have only one a week). The doctor said I could drink Diet Dr. Pepper. My concern with that is that it contains aspartame, which studies have shown can strip your nerve endings. It is also a possible carcinogen. The doctor has said that many studies done have shown those cases to be rare and having a Diet Dr. Pepper sometimes wouldn’t necessarily be bad for me. I’ve had Diet Dr. Pepper. It has the benefit of being the only diet sot drink I find palatable, but I’m still not crazy about it. I may have one sometime if the cravings get too bad, but it’s probably best to just cut the drink out of my life altogether. < heavy sigh >
Which brings us to chocolate. I have a small piece every day. Like, one square of a Hershey’s bar size. Other days I have a chocolate chip cookie. Or a brownie. And much like a weekly Dr. Pepper, I have one cup of hot chocolate on Sundays. Yes, they drive up my blood sugar. I could try to go down to one small piece every week (or one cookie or brownie), like I did with Dr. Pepper. Still not optimal as cutting it out completely but life without chocolate is not worth living.
She wants to put me on a gastroparesis diet. It consists of many small meals a day, instead of three big ones. I should avoid fatty foods and fiber. I haven’t gone over all of it yet to see what foods I can and cannot eat, but I know nuts are right out. (I love cashews and eat lots of peanut butter.) It also seems to advocate easy to digest foods and putting food in a blender to reduce it down to a paste. Great, I can start food shopping in the baby food aisle.
Finally, she brought up the dreaded colonoscopy. (She mentioned one or two other procedures that might be necessary down the road.) The only saving grace at the moment is that I don’t have insurance, and the likelihood that I have colon cancer (based on he Cologuard test I did) is still low. She said we could wait until I hit 65 in a few years and get on Medicare to cover the cost of the colonoscopy before getting one. Goody. Now I get to have two years of anxiety over having an IV put in me.
Doctors keep trying to “fix” me, and all it does is complicate my life. I guess it all comes down to quality of life versus quantity of life. All the things I enjoy are being taken away from me. I’m at that stage in life that everyone has told me my entire life that I’d get to do the things I enjoy. “You can do that when you get older, but you have to be responsible now. Get a job. Pay your bills. You can enjoy life when you retire.” Bullshit. Well, it’s later, I’m (mostly) retired, and I’m not getting to do the fun things. So, what’s the fucking point?
Let me state, I’m not having suicidal thoughts. I have a very high self-preservation instinct. Don’t take my statements that I’m depressed, or forlorn, or whatever. Yes, I do feel cheated. I feel lied to. And I’m not happy about it. I never went through that ‘teenage rebellious stage”. Maybe it’s damn well about time that I do.
If you’d like to support my efforts, why not buy me a chocolate chip cookie through my Ko-Fi page? https://ko-fi.com/jhusum