I Avoided the Eternal Dirt Nap

Yep, I had all the signs for the past 2 weeks and it dawned on me what it finally was; Diabetes.


You know the signs:

• Extreme thirstiness (as in you would kill something for a bottled water)
• Even more exhaustion, losing a significant amount of weight in a short period of time (as in 23 pounds in 2 weeks.)
• Blurry Vision

So, this past Saturday night I look up my symptoms and deduce it must be diabetes. I took my glucose level reading. Der, not good. In fact, alarming. Sunday morning, take it again, even worse. Ok, a call to the dr first thing Monday morning. I start to get irritated because I've been to the doctor on a regular basis and I finally see on my labs that my glucose was notated as "high" and my doctors said or did nothing about it. Don't even get me started. In fact, 2 of them noted that I had an "enlarged liver." and that "the high glucose is most likely steroid induced."

So you don't do anything? Jeez my knees, I feel like I must be my own doctor. I guess from now on, I will need to pore over all my medical and lab reports. The health care system is truly broken and in a complete state of disarray. My only thought about it is pure disgust.


So, schedule a physical with my doctor cause that is the only way she can see me fast. So on Tuesday I go into the doctor and she goes through the motions. I tell her to test me for Diabetes. "Why?" she asks...UH cause I have high blood sugar readings on my labs, hello?? She asks my symptoms and I tell her. So I do the urine test and they take my glucose reading.


Can we say "595"???? My doctor's jaw is on the floor and she walks next door to another doctor and tells him what is going on. She comes back in and takes a breath and tells me I'm dangerously close to having convulsions, having a stroke or worse. I HAVE to go into the hospital. The blood is running out of my face and I sit there drinking cups of water as fast as the nurse is handing it to me to try to stay hydrated. They think I have (DKA) Diabetic ketoacidosis an acute metabolic complication of diabetes characterized by hyperglycemia, hyperketonemia, and metabolic acidosis. DKA occurs mostly in type 1 diabetes. It causes nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain and can progress to cerebral edema, coma, and death.


So, off to the hospital I go for 3 days. After getting insulin IV's, poking my fingers and veins full of holes for glucose readings and labwork, they pronounce me well enough to come home. So I am learning to be a Carb counting machine and to quote a line from one of my favorite movies with my own spin:

"I may be exhausted and weak; hell, I may even be gimpy, but Dear God, I'm still here."

The dirt nap will have to wait.

More Musings Later (thank God)