Pearls before swine(not that I'm calling them swine)

One thing I haven't been doing much of lately is visiting any kind of establishment where bread is made. I just can't take it; I love fresh bread so much, and there are so many wonderful bakeries in this town, that now that I can no longer eat bread (at all, it seems – though maybe someday I can have a little of it again, I hope I hope) I'm just finding it easier to avoid those places altogether.

But last night I was riding home and the smell of the world's most drool-inducing (in a good way) cinnamon morning buns wafting toward me on the evening air finally got to me. All night long I obsessed about this place, which also makes utterly killer pear-ginger tea cakes and delicious fresh mozzarella, romaine and roma tomato sandwiches and the best seeded sourdough baguette in town, not to mention my favorite round purpley loaves of walnut wheat bread that is just divine with a little lemon-infused olive oil and goat cheese ... All things I must not eat right now ... but they also make a damn good latte, so this morning I decided to revisit the place and see how hard it would really be to go in, order something that is in my "food plan," and leave without caving in to temptation.

Because I can do that. All these years of playing Lent have taught me that it really isn't that hard to say no to things I've decided not to have. It's like with broccoli, which I also love but which unfortunately gives me terrible stomach cramps every time I have even just the tiniest little bite of it. You can tell me how healthy it is until you're blue in the face, but I know that for me, eating broccoli is never a good idea. So I just Don't.

Anyway, all this is just to provide a little context for the dismay I felt when I walked up to the building and saw three bakery employees sitting at the little picnic table in their outdoor break area, eagerly digging into a ginormous bag full of breakfast food from ... MCDONALD'S!!!!!

Perhaps to them fast food is still a fun-filled part of their American dream, but I actually died a little when I saw that. They have intimate access to some of the freshest, most delicious, highest quality baked goods on the entire planet – they're the ones who make them! And they eat McMuffins.

The latte was good though.

P.S. If I really want to make myself cry, I look at this. Ironically, I can actually eat every single thing on this page except the one thing I want more than any of the others ... the toast itself. Maybe someday ... or in my next life.

We now return to ourregularly scheduled inanity

Remember this one? I bought a bunch of songs off it a few months ago while in the throes of my own personal Freaks & Geeks revival, and somehow, even though at the time the album came out I felt I was waaaay too cool to like it, the passage of nearly 30 years has managed to render it deeply nostalgic for me .... Mainly, I remember dancing to Come Sail Away in the dim early evening light of my junior high school cafeteria, and the overwhelming relief I felt when the song broke away from the slow start and started rocking out – which meant I was finally released from the trembling arms of the earnest, eager, and anxious 13-year-old boy who was sweatily clutching the back of my rust-colored velour v-neck sweater.

Those were the days!

I also remember the theme of that dance – Jungle Love (another great song from the 70s) – and I remember lying on a large expanse of butcher paper on the floor of the cafeteria several days before the dance, painting an enormous wall-sized mural that included palm trees, an ocean sunset, and a strangely asymetrical sailboat – all things I had never seen before in real life but felt qualified to draw due to my recent obsessive study of all things Fantasy Island. This would have been in 1978.

Strange to think that kids these days ("kids these days") have instantaneous access to such vast quantities of music. For me back then, just finding a 45 of a song I liked was a major accomplishment; I hardly ever bought any music, in fact, because I never seemed to have any money, and what money I had I preferred to spend on books.

Anyway. I'm working late, and gettin' down at my desk with some fine late 20th-century schlock rock. Thanks, iTunes!

Follow-up to the follow-up

Don't you hate it when you imagine a really unpleasant, frustrating and maddening experience coming to pass, and then the actual experience turns out to be every bit as awful as you imagined it?

And don't you love it when it doesn't?

Sometimes I do get what I want. I love it when that happens. No, he did not tell me he'd made a mistake and I'm not really diabetic. But he was warm and sympathetic, spent extra time answering my many questions, passed my self-styled and highly rigorous "pop quiz for diabetes doctors" with flying colors, oohed and aahed over my miraculous record-keeping abilities and the numbers (and colors!) on my meticulous charts, and congratulated me on making such great progress in just one month. The cherry on top is that my numbers are good enough that he doesn't think we need to increase my medication, so I won't be revisiting all that excruciating cramping and bloating – hooray!

I'm actually really relieved that I'm not going to have to change doctors. I don't want to have to find time to interview every single doctor in town. Not that that's a lot – there are actually only eight doctors to choose from in my insurance plan, unless I want to travel at least 40 minutes every time I have to see someone, which I do not. The whole reason I chose this guy in the first place was because I've known him for about ten years (we volunteer for some of the same organizations), and liked him on a personal level. Maybe what I saw as an unnecessarily brisk, dismissive attitude at my last appointment was really just his way of trying to let me know there was no need to totally freak out about my diagnosis ... I dunno. Anyway, I'm glad he approved of me today, and that I approved of him. I feel a lot better about the relationship now.

The visit was not all champagne and roses, however. One of the aggravating things I found out is that the scale we have at home is even more inaccurate than I realized. I've still lost about the same amount of weight I thought I'd lost, but as it turns out, my total weight is actually about 12 lbs. more than I thought it was! That was discouraging. But – I'm going to focus on pounds lost, not pounds to begin with, and even though I now know I have even a little farther to go than I had thought, I have made a good start, and will continue to work on it. That's really all I can do, anyway.

He agreed with me that 105 is not a realistic weight for me. We decided to start by shooting for the top end of the BMI scale, and if I want to make my goal even lower at some point in the future, he said he would feel okay about having me go as low as about 125. That sounds fine to me.

Another thing, which really has nothing at all to do with me except that it does sort of give me a different perspective on all my own health issues, is that a friend I've just been getting to know and like very much was just diagnosed yesterday with Cushing's Syndrome. She had gestational diabetes when she was pregnant with her two-year-old, and had been worried she might be moving toward Type 2 diabetes. But that isn't what's going on with her. Also, my cousin's wife was diagnosed a month or so ago with Addison's Disease. And a woman I used to work with found out recently that her 11-year-old daughter has juvenile diabetes. She was in a coma in the children's hospital in Oakland for almost a week.

So yeah. Not that I take any comfort in other people's suffering, but it does feel good to remember that just like we all have things to deal with, we also all have unique ways we're able to help each other through life. I wrote awhile ago about a documentary I'd seen about the 1918 influenza epidemic, and how I felt sort of insulted to think that I might someday have to suffer the indignity of a miserable death from some similar disease, like the bird flu. How could someone so intelligent and modern and strong and kind as me, possibly be subject to such an ignominious condition? It's sort of the same way I felt about my diabetes diagnosis. Moi? C'est impossible! It's gotta be some kind of mistake.

Lately though I've been realizing that what I felt wasn't really so much about diabetes, as it was about being forced to look a lot more closely at the fact that someday I really am going to die. The fact that I'm now "officially" much more likely to die of a heart attack or stroke doesn't change the fact that I would have died someday, of something, anyway. And in fact, knowing now that my risks for those things are so much higher than the average person, I may be able to do more to lower my risks than if I'd never been diagnosed, or even become diabetic in the first place.

I'm not totally clear on what I'm trying to say here. I guess just that I think it's interesting that I'm one of the least in-denial-about-death people I know, and now I have this condition I have to deal with every day for the rest of my life – my Actual LIFE, the only one I have – a condition that sort of shoves the idea back in my face again – this idea I've never really tried to deny or avoid anyway – the idea, the understanding, that this body is not forever, someday you have to leave it, someday I and every other living thing on this planet really will die.

Somehow, with those three friends of mine dying this spring, and various others preparing to die all around me (the Jeeps is still hanging in there, at least for now), maybe finding out my own health was in crisis felt like a bigger deal to me than it might have under other circumstances.

But I'm not dead yet! Nor even dying. So that's good, right?

Man, enough with the death & decay talk already! It's spring, and I am now officially moving on to other topics.

Now I HAVE to ride

The paper I work for interviewed me last week for a story about Bike To Work Day. I knew there was going to be a photo, but I didn't know it was going to be on the front page, and I didn't know it was going to be huge! Urgh. My hermitary sensibilities are deeply offended, my cover is totally blown, and I can never again drive to work without everyone in town knowing that contrary to the claims of this august publication, I do not actually ride to work every day, rain or shine.

Although for about the last month, I pretty much have been. One night a week I meet with a client on the opposite side of the valley, in a rural area where it isn't really safe to ride at night, so on those days I drive. Otherwise, I'm riding pretty much everywhere again. It's been good, mostly. I'm also walking every day, either with dogs or on the treadmill. It's exactly one mile to the end of our road and back, and I can walk it in about 15 minutes, which makes it a nice little excursion first thing in the morning or after dinner, or both.

So yeah. Pounds are coming off. I have mixed feelings about it. When people tell me how good I look, my first thought is still defensive. I always think what they really want to say is something along the lines of, "Thank god you're finally slimming down! I never would have said anything before, but now that you've come to your senses I can tell you that I've never seen such a big fat cow as you were, in all my life." Et cetera.

Also, my carefully cultivated stash of summer uniforms no longer fits, so I'm down to wearing the same pair of pants every day until I have time to get to the thrift store for some transitional clothes. My favorite skirt, which I've had for only two months, is now too big. Shirts that used to be comfortably loose now look like those three-armed drapey things they make you wear when you go in for a mammogram. I keep wanting to replace my entire wardrobe Right This Minute, but I really don't know how much weight I'm going to end up losing, or what size I will be when I'm done. Maybe some people might find this fun and exciting – all new clothes! – but for someone who hates to shop, and has gone to great lengths to craft a life that does NOT require agonizing over decisions about such minutiae as what to wear every day ... It's kind of stressful.

On the positive side, I'm no longer as hungry as I was in the beginning, my blood sugar is still coming down, and even I have to admit I look better than I did a month ago. So far I've lost about fifteen pounds. I can tell the difference, and it's been pretty easy to do; so now I'm thinking maybe my original goal of 40 was not strict enough. Maybe I should go for 50? Or even 60? 100? 200? According to the BMI charts, to be of "normal" weight a person of my height (5'4") should weigh between about 105 and 145. Am I really supposed to be trying to get down to the low end of that scale? I haven't weighed 105 since high school!

Well, one thing at a time. I guess for me right now the more interesting number is the one on my glucometer. Watching that number come down has been heartening, and also alarming, as I found out this week that hormonal changes (like when you get your period!) tend to cause blood sugar to rise by as much as 10-20 points on average, for a "period" (hmm!) of several days. Not to mention all the water retention and bloating. Unfortunately, these supposedly temporary increases in my hard-won losses exactly coincide with my first follow-up appointment with my doctor, at which I had hoped to wow him with my lightning-fast triumph over excess weight and high blood sugar and inspire him to declare, in tones of reverence and awe, "Gee, I guess maybe you're really not diabetic, after all!"

It's been interesting to notice how much I really, really want my doctor to approve of me through all this. I've said before that while other girls got attention and rewards for being pretty and popular, the rewards I got were usually for being creative and smart. I always did well on tests – loved taking them – and if for some reason I didn't do as well as I wanted to, I would go home determined to work harder and ace it the next time, which I was always able to do.

Somehow when I "failed" the blood glucose screening test, I felt angry, challenged, and personally insulted. My doctor telling me I was diabetic felt like a mean, strict teacher telling me not only that I'd earned an F on a test when I'd been expecting to get an A, but that I'd probably never be able to get an A again.

So now I want to go to this appointment tomorrow and impress him with how hard I've worked and how much progress I've made in a very short time. But I suspect that's not what's going to happen. He isn't the warm and fuzzy or congratulatory type, for one thing. And diabetes isn't something you can "conquer" once and be done with it – it's chronic. It's for the long haul. It's forever. Also, I suspect he feels some contempt for me because I'm fat (I'm still fat, by the way – not as fat as I was a month ago, but still).

I think what's really going to happen is that his nurse will weigh me and test my blood glucose, and then he'll come in and look at my chart and say, "Hmm, you've lost some weight, your numbers are down, that's good. Let's increase your medication to twice a day, and I'll see you again in July."

He might not even look at the charts I've prepared to make it easy for him to see what I've been doing – clearly labeled and color coded and cross referenced and everything. It's going to drive me insane if he doesn't congratulate me on my charts.

ANYway. I'm actually hoping he doesn't want to increase the meds, even though I know that's standard treatment, because I finally figured out that it's the meds that have been causing all the agony in my intestines, and they have only just barely, after almost an entire month, started settling back to normal and stopped killing me every single moment of the day and night. But I guess if that's what it takes to get my numbers down, I will live with it.

Sigh. And I promised this wasn't going to turn into "my diabetes journey."

Nothing sacred

A credit card – with a picture of the Budddha on the front?! An om symbol? Praying hands? Who ARE these people?

Listen to this load of crap from their website:

"Finally, a socially conscious credit card. [This card] was founded on the idea that money is energy and if used with positive and integrative intention, can have the power to affect change in our lives and the world. Everyone uses a credit card, so why not have one where people can earn points towards positive products and services that enhances their overall conscious life?"

Aside from at least three typographical and grammatical errors, I see at least two more problems with this copy. One, it isn't true that everyone uses a credit card. I don't. I don't even have a credit card. And two, have they never heard of the Working Assets credit card, introduced in the 80s, "founded" on basically the very same idea? That's just one that I happen to know about, because it was my very first credit card. And it screwed me with high interest and hidden charges just as badly as any other card I ever had.

There is something different about this one, though: according to the ad, you can redeem your rewards points for sacred travels. And that's just one item on the list of available products and services.

I wonder if anyone's marketing a Jesus face credit card yet?

It's happening!

This is a photo of the actual cable that will soon be bringing broadband Internet service into my home! We still don't know when we'll actually be able to plug in, but the trucks have been here several times already (creating a new, awkward and not altogether welcome roadway through our back field), and now the roll of cable is here as evidence that they're NOT just talking about offering service on our road – they're finally doing it!

We might even sign up for ... gasp ... Television!

Not feeling much like writing lately. I'm still pretty hungry, and am slowly figuring out that I'm probably not going to ever be able to eat much of anything made out of grain – any kind of grain. So that's a bummer. I'm trying not to think too much about it, and focus on the millions of delicious things I can eat.

I have a cousin who has a deadly allergy to legumes – even the tiniest molecule of peanut powder in her food could kill her (and very nearly has). She doesn't go around frowning about all the peanut butter sandwiches she can't eat, or try to trick herself into thinking just a little bite here and there won't hurt ... She just stays the hell away from anything suspicious. I may end up trying to cultivate a similar attitude toward grain products – bread, bagels, crackers, brown rice, cookies, quinoa salad, spelt pasta ... I won't keel over in anaphylactic shock the moment I eat it, but over time that kind of diet will raise my blood sugar enough to destroy my eyes, kidneys, nerve endings, heart, feet, etc. etc....

So maybe I'll just have to say, I've enjoyed all those things SO much already in my life, I'm going to consider myself as having already used up my lifetime allotment of enjoyment of grains, and will now turn my attention to the galaxy of other wonderful foods awaiting my discovery ...

I still do wish I could have just one more piece of toast, though.

But for now, I'm going to say no. My constant testing is showing me that it just isn't worth it for me, at least not right now.

One last gripe – the "live well with diabetes" literature I was given by the Registered Dietician is completely full of crap! If that's the kind of advice diabetic people are being given by their trusted medical professionals, then I'm not surprised so many of them end up with complications. Ugh ... I'm too tired to get into it right now. Suffice it to say, I'm not following their suggestions. People do need fiber and carbohydrates and B vitamins (etc.) to be healthy, but it's only very recently in the history of the species that we've obtained ANY of those nutrients from grain-based foods. At least until I get my blood sugar under control, I'm going back to the caveman diet – fresh raw crunchy colorful veggies, a little meat, maybe a little fruit once in awhile. But even fruit makes my blood go insane!

Anyway. I'm tired, hungry, on deadline and not feeling very motivated to communicate articulately. Oh – plus, PMS.

Must. Eat. More. Raw. Cabbage.

Happy news

My little sister just called with some exciting news – she's having twins! This will make her the mother of six, and me the aunt of 17. Hooray!

This particular sister always amazes me with her incredible energy and marathon-running ways, in addition to her humor, calmness, creativity and just general sense of joie de vivre. Her husband, the same – an amazing artist, businessman, fly fisherman, and of course a really, really fun dad.

Two has always been my favorite number. Now, even more so. Can't wait to meet these new little folks!

The fun continues

Just thought you might like to know that for the last several days I have been bloated beyond all recognition by all this extra fiber I've been eating. I love raw cabbage – I still love it, adore it! – but this huuuurts. Like my intestines are full of broken rocks.

Then this morning, as I was hobbling around trying to get ready for work, I noticed an undulating curve of sparkly white lights hovering in front of my right eye – classic migraine aura. Digging through every drawer in the bathroom I finally found my old box of Imitrex. The one I got the last time I had a really bad migraine. The one that expired in 2000. There was nothing else in the cabinet except aspirin, so I wrestled the dusty little tablet out of its protective plastic bubble (finally had to gnaw the damn thing open, cutting my lip in the process) and took it anyway, called to let my boss know I was going to be late, and spent the next five hours lying in bed with my head on a bag of frozen peas, groaning and wishing I could see well enough to drive myself to the hospital for a shot of Demerol. I have a friend who swears by it for migraines.

ANYway. Nobody who reads this could possibly be any more bored with my boring catalog of ailments than I am, so I'm gonna move on to some new topics.

Summer sheets! The other night I swapped the flannels for a fresh set of crisp cotton, and wow – it's like having a whole new bed.

Summer haircuts! Mr. A and I both had a couple inches lopped off the other day. It was a lot more noticeable on him than on me. We also power washed both dogs and gave the Taterman his seasonal shave. This time we all did it in one day and it looks great! He smells good too.

Summer food! We planted tomatoes, basil, cilantro, parsley and all kinds of assorted flowers. Basil pesto is one of my favorite things of all time, and I'm sorry but I really do love to eat it on pasta, so I'm in search of a low-glycemic variety that I can eat without sending my glucose through the roof. People have suggested whole wheat pasta, or spelt pasta – so I'll be looking for those to try this weekend.

Summer shoes! Sandals rule, and no more socks til November. Nuff said.

Two weeks into it: some perspective

I edited the personal details out of this chart, but you can see that the general trend is definitely in the right direction – down. In fact, as of today my average over a little less than two weeks of testing is only 8 points higher than the maximum needed to diagnose. I've still got a lot of work to do, but it's encouraging to see some movement on these numbers.

Some thoughts.

1. My glucometer is my new best friend. I hate needles, and the thought of having to stab myself several times a day really pissed me off at first. It only took me a day or so to get over that, after which my curiosity kicked in and I started testing obsessively to try and figure out exactly what was going on with my blood from one hour to the next during the day. I still don't like the finger stick part, but it's a huge relief to have such an easy, readily available and accurate way to assess the effects of various foods and activities. Everything I've been reading suggests that the complications I'm so terrified of are not necessarily inevitable – they're the result of years of elevated blood glucose (BG) levels, and in most cases, if people keep their BG within a healthy range, there's very little risk of developing those complications. Part of the problem in the past has been that the recommended BG range for diabetics is significantly higher than what's considered normal for a non-diabetic – so, following those guidelines, even someone who's maintaining supposedly "good control" would still have BG levels high enough to cause damage over long periods of time. I'm still researching this, but for now my goal is to do whatever it takes to maintain my BG at non-diabetic levels.

2. I'm no longer afraid of insulin. I'd still rather not have to use it – I really, really hate injections of any kind, and if it ever comes to that for me I'm reserving the right to get pissed off in the extreme all over again. At the same time, it's reassuring to know that if diet, exercise and oral medications aren't enough at some point, there's still a way to keep my BG at what I consider a safe level. I'd rather shoot up than lose my feet!

3. Goodbye snake, hello bird. Getting used to eating differently has been the most challenging part for me so far. For almost 20 years I have employed an eating pattern Mr. A refers to as "the snake" – going long periods of time without eating much of anything, then eating some BIG meal that would supposedly tide me over until the next day. This kind of eating is a disaster for someone with my kind of metabolism, I now know. Now, I'm supposed to eat every 2-3 hours throughout the day, but only very small amounts of food, with the goal of preventing my blood sugar from ever going way up or way down. It's like how birds eat – constantly having a little something, but rarely having very much of anything at any one time. I'm not used to it yet, and I don't like it very much. I resent having to constantly interrupt what I'm doing to go eat something, and I miss that dreamy, druggy feeling I used to get at the end of an especially wonderful meal. Before, I used to eat until I felt full. Now, I only eat until I no longer feel ravenously hungry, then stop.

4. I'm still hungry all the time. Part of this is no doubt because I'm eating less than I used to – but that can't be the only reason. Even when I used to eat a lot, I was always hungry – always! I could finish a whole plate of food and feel my stomach stretching so much I knew it was full, and I would STILL feel hungry. I know I already wrote about the idea that a predisposition to diabetes can contribute to people getting fat by making them hungry all the time ... You're hungry, so you eat more, which makes you fatter, which increases your insulin resistance, which increases your blood sugar, which makes you even hungrier, etc. etc. Or something like that. This week I learned that it apparently works the other way as well – reducing blood sugar helps normalize your appetite, which means you eat less, which means you lose weight, which decreases insulin resistance, which decreases your blood sugar. Getting the blood sugar numbers down isn't easy (and you still have that tendency toward intense hunger), but once you're heading in that direction, all kinds of good things start happening.

I've also read reviews of a few studies that suggest people with diabetes genes may need less food to gain the same amount of weight as regular people do. It's a genetic variation that some people think used to be an advantage back when people had to chase down their own food and sometimes went a long time without much to eat – the better you could do on fewer calories, the more likely you were to survive hard times. These days, at least for someone like me, that adaptation isn't such an advantage. Because it's genetic, chances are if you have relatives who are diabetic, you may be predisposed to it, too. It runs in my family on both sides. Too bad I didn't know that until after I was diagnosed.

Not that I'm trying to deny all responsibility for the situation I'm in. If I had paid more attention and worked this hard a few years ago, back when I was still "normal," I might have been able to avoid or at least postpone this whole thing. But I'm learning that there's more to becoming diabetic than just being overweight and underexercised. Somehow that makes me feel better: at least it's not ALL my own stupid fault.

5. I (heart) my treadmill. The other day, just as an experiment, I ate a half-cup of organic fiber cereal with a half-cup of skim milk. It wasn't very tasty or satisfying, but the dietician had recommended it as an alternative to my usual buttered toast and honey, and I wanted to see how much it would raise my BG in comparison. The carbs were so low I didn't expect much to happen, but when I tested again 40 minutes later my BG had shot up more than 100 points (that's a lot!). Rather than flip out (which I desperately desired to do) I decided to continue the experiment by getting on the treadmill. I watched the first 68 minutes of the Long Goodbye (as recommended by Julie) while strolling at 2.5 miles an hour up a 6-8% incline, and when I tested again I got my first-ever reading in normal range – a 94. I was shocked to find out how well it worked! I've since tested various other forms of exercise, and sure enough – it really does lower my blood sugar dramatically, and quickly. Good to know. (P.S. The toast, strangely, seems to be okay for me to have – just not first thing in the morning anymore.)

6. Food is still good. There are about six million different and conflicting schools of thought about what constitutes the ideal "diabetic diet." Rather than glomming onto someone else's idea of what works, I'm using my meter as my guide. So far, except for the tiny portion sizes, and having to remember to eat constantly, most of what seems to work for me is not that different from what I used to eat before. Even sweet stuff that I might have thought would be off limits seems to be okay, as long as I don't eat too much of it. As an example, two of my favorite little cinnamon crisp cookies have the same carbs and only 2/3 of the calories of half of a nasty-tasting sugar-free fake chocolate South Beach Diet snack bar, but the snack bar raises my BG almost twice as much as the cookies. A lot of the food recommendations I've been seeing start with sentences like, "Take one 100-calorie pack of sugar-free chocolatey crisp cookies, crumble over one sugar-free chocolate pudding cup ..." – which I guess might be helpful for people who are accustomed to eating a lot of sugar-filled pre-packaged snacks they can no longer have. But those suggestions don't do much for me. I've never been in the habit of eating that kind of crap to begin with, and I'm not going to start eating the sugar-free diabetic-friendly versions of it now.

7. I have a new appreciation for Diet Coke. Not that I'm about to start drinking soda every day now, even though diet soda is one of the few things of which you're "allowed" to have as much as you want. I always thought, and still think, that diet soda tastes weird, and especially dislike that slippery, cool, synthetic taste that stays in your mouth after you're done drinking it. Why can't they come up with a diet drink that tastes normal, I wondered. But yesterday between doctor's appointments (see #8) I came to appreciate the difference. I was dying for some way to fill up my starving belly, and had the unprecedented (for me) idea of getting a big Diet Coke from the drive-through at Jack in the Box on my way to my next appointment. So I ordered it, paid for it, and lifted it to my lips as I drove away ... and then it occurred to me, what if that oh-so-easily-distractable teen gave me regular Coke instead of diet? That would be very, very bad for my blood sugar right now! But that slippery synthetic taste is impossible to miss, and I knew from the first mouthful that it would be okay for me to drink the whole jug of it if I really wanted to. That was a relief. Although I am now wondering: since when is a "medium" soda so big you have to use both hands to drink it?

8. Eyes and feet are fine. Yesterday I took another afternoon off work and visited an ophthalmologist and a podiatrist. I haven't had any symptoms of eye or foot problems, but I figure – I don't know how long my blood sugar has been high, and if there's anything wrong with other parts of me I'd rather just get all my bad news at once and figure out how to deal with everything together. Thankfully, there was no bad news to deal with. Everything checked out totally fine and healthy, which means that if I'm relentlessly hardcore about getting my sugar down right away by any means necessary, and diligent about keeping it low for the rest of my life, my fears of blindness, disability, dialysis, amputation and early death will probably never come to pass. And if they do, at least I'll know it wasn't because I was slacking off when I could've done something to prevent it.

9. Losing weight feels good. It's funny that the number on the glucometer has been so successful in keeping me motivated, when the number on the scale has failed to do so for so long. But whatever works, I guess. I've lost several more pounds since last week and am slowly getting used to the idea that I'm not going to have this kind of body anymore – that I really can't have this kind of body anymore. I'm okay with it. The main kind of body I want is the kind that is capable of sustaining life and feeling good. If I have to stay on the lean side of normal to achieve that (as recommended by the diabetes experts I'm coming to respect the most), then that's what I'll do.

10. My self-absorption and obsessive personality are finally coming in handy. I've been reading everything I can find about type 2 diabetes, weighing and logging every gram of food I eat and what time I eat it, testing my blood 8-10 times a day, taking my blood pressure every day, keeping a pedometer in my pocket (with the goal of walking at least 10,000 steps a day), and writing down every minute of exercise. I'm sure eventually I'll be able to lighten up on this rigorous schedule of self-examination, but for now it feels good to be doing something constructive with all my extra energy and anxiety.

Thanks to everyone who's expressed support – it helps! One of these days I really will do a trip report, and write about some other things that have been going on that are semi-interesting, at least to me.