several about Diabetics...

One of the latest emails from the ADA talked about the threat of pneumonia. The threat to "old folks" is that pneumonia weakens their bodies for the illness that kills them...

"That what doesn't kill us makes us stronger."

Friedrich Nietzsche

"That which doesn't kill us makes us vulnerable to that which can kill us!".

Me...

---

There was a rather horrifying statistic about the incidence of diabetics in children. This is both type 1 and type 2. I've got to wonder how this will impact on military recruitment when these kids come of age.

I can see the Armed Forces not "ingesting" the type 1s but the type 2s will be a different matter.

Then, I thought of the "boots's" feet. ('Boots' is the old expression for enlisted recruits...)

---

Then, I thought of the "boots's" feet.

I remember the boots ("boondockers") and "low cut" dress shoes I was issued in Navy Boot Camp in September 1970. The leather was very rough and everyone got blisters. Some of these blisters bleed and that made them possible infection sites.

The second Thursday of December (the 14^th), I got a blister on my "left index toe". This appeared to be infected so my family MD had me on anti-bodies for ten days.

Around Christmas, I was outside barefoot and scrapped by right heel on the shoe. Fortunately, I still had two antibotic pills to go when this happened.

So, no infection and skin is growing over the "wound" site.

I was diagnoses as a type 2 on 7 May 2004. I've been "lucky". I have to wonder how many diabetics would be "booted out" of Boot Camp with serious foot wounds or possibly misxsing foot parts.

I doubt it the V A is ready to deal with this...

Oddly low...

My morning fasting score (taken after I walked the dog) was 89.

89?

This is the 2^nd lowest I've ever had!

I did have trouble with the reading this morning. Sometimes, the test stripe doesn't go in v;ery well and I have to pull it out and put it back in again (not in sexual manner...). This morning, I "wetted" one side and nothing happened. I squeezed more blood out of my finger and "wetted" the other side of the stripe. It took two tries but it worked.

I probably should have tried again. Also, I normally test off my forearm but today it had to be the finger. I had put on a long sleeved t=shirt when I got dressed and didn't want to pull the sleeve up...

I ain't no saint myself...

For years I bitched about my youngest brother's inability to control his blood sugar. I have days wshere I eat a "big" meal at nivht andmy score is comparatively low the next morning (104 -120) and other nights where I have a salad and my score is 135 to 145 two hours later; nights where a steak, small potatoes and veggies give me a smaller score.

I called my youngest brother and he said he was averaging 251; basically at least 100 points then my "normal" highest...

I was wearing a black socks and black dress shoes that don't fit worth a damn. The skin on my 2nd and 3rd toes of my left foot were reddened from friction but hadn't blistered up. I wrapped a band aid on one of the toes and wear and tear dropped off. I'm going to have to go to the diabetic shoe store in Garden City to get myself a decent pair of dress shoes.

I'll need them this comning year....

Brother's status - good news...

My youngest brother finally got around to calling teh Social Security people to look into getting onto disability. He had been told early this year that:

1. he would be rejected the first two or three times and
   
2. he would probably not make it anyway and
   
3. he would have to deal with his medical and other bills for 8 or 9 months
   

He called and was told "you should have called years ago!

It looks good for him...

Four days later, still no news and no emails...

Charlie's status...

My youngest brother was in hospital in late November. He had gone in with the vomiting and had a heart attack while in the emergency room. They put him in Heart CCU (Cardiac Care Unit). Two days later, they decided to try a quarduptle bypass. I couldn't help but wonder where they would get the blood vessels from. After all, his reight leg ends at mid theigh and his left leg about 5 inches above his ancle. This means the vein used in his surgery in March 2006 was wasted. He had a serious infection of his left foot back then and they had taken a vein from high in his left thigh and had used this to replace the trashed out veins then in his lower left leg. After a while, they simply had to whack off his left foot. It was very painful for all and especially him to lose that foot but it still bothers me that saving the foot had wasted a vein that might have eventually gone to save his heart.

Anyway, they called in the cardiac surgeon and tried angeopathy vice open heart. The surgeon said is was a "no go" [or words to that effedt]. Then, the bette rspecialist was called in and he decreed that Charlie probably would not survive open heart surgery; if he did survive then his kidneys would have been totally trashed. So, this better surgeon decided to try angipathy again. Being the better "cutter", he succeed.

So, my youngest brother was declared suitable to be released.

Our other two brothers and I are quite concerned. We worry about what he eats (pizza and coke cola, beer and wine), his apparent unwillingness to walk on his prothesis and his over willingness to use the wheel chair and his apparent unwillingness to work on his own behalf.

We were happy that Charlie had a group insurance plan to cover his hospital stay. He had been fired in early November (he was out sick too many days) but still had the company medical plan until the end of November 2006.

That is a damned shame! If he had lost the insurance, Charlie would have gone back on COBRA and would have had total coverage. Instead, his "company group insurance" was only good for $5,000 and his bills were about $100,000!. This means he owes $95,000! He will lose all his money (including his inheritance) and anything of real value to pay off his hospital bill.

Folks like Charlie need free public health care, if only because they'll never be able to pay back the very, very large hospital bills they run up. I'm not rich and we can't afford to carry Chrlie's debts and pay his bills. This is already causing problems between my wife and me and between another brother of ours and his wife!

on Soy Yogart...

I read a article called "Soy yogurt could help control diabetes" the other day that asserted "eating soy yogurt" will help diabetics by lowering their blood sugar. I tried a small container (6 oz) of a Strawberry/Vinalla flavoured soy yogart this afternoon. It looks horrible but actually tasted good. The article didn't state the minimum daily dosage. Given the container I ate cost 99¢, I don't know if the $6⁹³/week will be worth it. However, since there was only one other container in the cooler at the 14^th Street Dillions, I don't think this'll be a problem

I looked up the recipe for soy yogart from my copy of "Sailing The Farm". Then, I sniffed the little bit of milk we had in the fridge, tasted it (it hadn't really started going bad) and fired up a batch of home made milk yogert.

I've found my raw soy seeds from last year or so and they still seem fine. So, following the instructions in "Siling the Farm", I'm going to make some soy milk tomorrow and buy another container of the soy yogurt and try it with soy "milk".

mystery of sugar...

I had a salad, with low cal dressing and water. Two hours later, my blood sugar reading was quite high (171 I think but I'll have to look it up). The dismaying thing about this is I've eatten stuff that should have "flashed" to blood sugar easier than a salad and (perhaps) too many slices of salami.

I am going to correlate meal type and blood sugar one of these days.

My "Nurse Case Manager" or "Diabetic Coach" Karen and I...

This is my "Nurse Case Manager" or "Diabetic Coach" Karen and I at the Diabetics Seminar, at the Dodge City Senior Center, on 24 October 2006. (Yes, my name is "Mike", I live in Dodge City Kansas and too many people can identify me. Still, I feel the desire to be secretive about my "real" name.)


Me and my "Diabretic Coach" Karen ("Diabetic Educator" actually). I don't have permission to give her full name and any locating information so I won't...
"My" Karen and another nurse.

dying by abundance

______In this Slate article, ("Please Do Not Feed the Humans" or "The global explosion of fat") William Saletan discusses how our species evolved in an environment of food scarcity. The recent (last century) abundance of food has happened too fast for evolution to counter said abundance with improved inherited "time to stop eating" mechanisms and anti-obesity, anti-diabetes, anti-heart attack mechanisms, etc. We're being killed by the survival mechanisms that allowed our ancestors to survive long enough to beget us!
______I remember worrying about losing 10 pounds in high school. I also remember girls being mocked for being 5 to 10 pounds overweight. Now, I'm probably 50 pounds overweight and can't seem to lose that weight. Sadly, I work with young men who are overweight to the point of looking pregnant.
______Decades ago, I noted that poor blacks in southern Mississippi seemed to be the most obese. I later realized they were eating cheap and very high calory foods. A fairly snotty and apparently anti-American Brit ("The end of obesity?" by Gwynne Dyer) commented on this as well. This Brit expected the obesity epidemic to fizzle out due to "global warming" and a return to food scarcity by the end this century. (I take a certain amount of comfort in the realization that diabetes and probable heart problems and simply age will render me dead well before then. I was born in 1951...)
______In spite of my gloomy belief the human race will kill itself off in the next century or two (probably via that old standby, killing over religious differences). Perhaps not the death of the entire species, maybe a small enough fraction of the current overpopulation will survive and humans will once again be were they were for so many millienum: on the endangered species list! (I smirk whilst reading this but I really hope it doesn't happen. I want the various kids in my family and the families of friends to survive. I'd be lying if I said I worried about foreigners...)
______So what is the point of this blog? Well, given that type 2 diabetes is caused by obesity and there has been an explosive increase in both childhood obesity and childhood type 2 diabetes, then we need to be worried. Twenty years ago, "childhood type 2 diabetes" simply didn't exist (supposedly).

comments on "needle" versus "oral medications"...

______I had a conversation with a Diabetes Educator and a fellow Type Two. This woman muttered "I don’t want to go on the needle".
______I replied "me neither".
______The Diabetes Educator said in a very earnest voice "I’m not a diabetic but if I were, I would skip the pills and go straight to injected insulin".
______When I told my diabetics coach yesterday, I said "she is not a diabetic and doesn’t understand the fear of having to use the needle for the rest of my life. I don’t want to use the needle until I’ve tried everything else".
______She commented that "the needle" isn’t such a bad fate. Sorry but I don’t agree and want to keep from having to use injected insulin for as long as I can.

Saving the Diabetic...

This is a ADA news release about the killing of a Senate Bill that would have made life much harder for Diabetics. If you're a diabetic or know someone who is, it is still worth your while to
_______* find out how "your" Senator voted and
_______* send them a thank you or a "Foxtrot Uniform"

http://www.diabetes.org/uedocuments/enzi051106.pdf

I sent an angry note to both of "my" Senators, both good apparachiks.

Happy Day! Good News!!

______Well, I had my dilated eye exam and Dr. Tarwater said there were no problems with my eyes! I was quite happy to hear this!
______After he asked me who my eyeglass doctor was (Dr. Copeland), I told him I was planning on getting my eyes examined in October. He then told me that I might want to put that exam off as Dr. Copeland was being treated for cancer. This is very sad; I like Copeland and folks I know not only like him but like his family as well.
______It was a mixed event: my eye health was fine but Dr. Copeland is now.

Good news!

Results of my Blood Work (23 May 2006)...

           Lipid - Perfect

     Cholesterol - 152 total

Good Cholesterol - 52 (50 is minimum)

 Bad Cholesterol - 86 (100 is maximum)

   Triglycerides - 68 (160 is maximum)

  Hemoglobin A1C - 7 (adequate)

PSA 1.21 (good as it is less than 4; last year was 1.37)

Lost 7 pounds since last year

My feet (my old "personal" picture...)

Actually, this is my dog and our new cat sleeping on the couch and actually gettihng along with each other...
My feet!

good eatting and horrible numbers!

Dinner: At the High Street Brfewer and Cafe in Eugene Oregon:

Appetizer: tater tots with cheese dip

Hamberger (1/3 pound) with Tillamooh cheedar cheese and a fried egg

plus great french fries

and two glasses of a great microbrew beer!

The hamberger was so good it deserves to be mentioned by it's name ("Wilbur's Jumbo Deluxe Burger") and it's description "Bacon,Tillamook cheddar, & a fried egg" on their menu.

Events have consequences and so did my "little" binging...

Then, 2 hours and 30 minutes later, I took my "two hours after eatting blood reading" (the above figure of 201!).

For most folks, that might seem too high. But for me, it is quite high and will probably fuck up my A1C test in late May! (28 May 2006: This little binge probably had it's part in my getting an increase in A1c from 6.8 to 7.0! in late May!) However, it was well worth it!

Dinner: At the Golden Crown in Beaveron, Oregon, the number 9 and a beer.

This food was quite good but was quite bad for me! Two hours after eatting, I had the highest blood sugar reading I've ever recorded! This was:

For me, this was a shockingly high value. I just knew that it really help fuck up my A1C test in late May (and I rather think that it did!). Alas but it did give me a really strong hint on what I shouldn't eat. Also, I could take comfort in the fact that I go to this restraunt perhaps once a year and almost never go to Chinese elsewhere. Kind of a reassurring thougth, kind of...

Of course, I being a highly intelligent type who takes bad news in stride and knowing that I should do nothing to jack that frigging reading, didn't go out for a walk but had a beer instead...

Ok, I may be fairly intelligent but sometimes I just sigh and do the easy but bad things...

Besides, I felt better after having that beer. (I didn't get around to telling me wife just how bad bad was...)

pictures of my feet...

Given that my brother Charlie doesn't have feet, I get a certain amount of reassurrance in knowing that I still do.








My wife accidentally "cut off" my big toes when she took this photo.










An attempt at photographing my damaged left little toe. I ran my left foot into something about four months ago and the toenail may have stopped growing.

Another shot of my left foot.

A nice shot of my feet!

Who says my dog and cat (one of them anyway) can't get along with each other?

I just picked a scab...

My brother Charlie has a serious ulser on his left foot. He finally admitted that the ulser was on the side of his left heel and that he had developed a blister there.

A blister?

Wasn't he taking care to ensure his shoe fit well? (With no right foot, saying "shoes" is rather redundant and sentimental.)

Well, the blister had scabbed over and he picked the scab!

He picked the fucking scab? Well, that lead to an infection and that lead to him going to the emergency room in January with a serious ulser. He knows his blood sugar is way too high and also knows the threats of foot injury.

There is something very scary about my brother's leg loss. He has been a diabetic for 26 years and his blood sugar is why too damn high. (He thinks an A1C of 7.5 is normal.) I've been a diabetic for almost two years and I'm having trouble with my own blood sugar. I'm worrying that I might someday end up in the same fucked up situation as my brother.

"Natural" cure for Diabetics???

I didn't read very much of this and simply have the opinion they are advertising a natural "diet" as a cure (for Type 2 diabetics anyway).

This sounds like advertising BS. But, then, I've read that a lot of people in Sauda Arabia swear by eatting locusus as a diabetics cure (I don't recall where I read this.)

picture of something very important to me...

"My feet! Something that eventually goes away from the diabetics in my family..."

PAM (Pissing And Moaning)

I'm still PAMing (Pissing and Moaning) about my blood sugar "score" from last night. I'll quote from myself:

"We did go out to dinner last night, to celebrate me having taken the A1C test. We went to Arby's and had steak and garlic mashed potatoes and a really decadent desert!

It was wonderful.

Two hours after I finished eatting, my blood sugar was 225!

Two hundred and twenty five!

That is the highest I've seen it on a test I did myself. So, I guess that wonderful desert really is sweet poison. I won't be doing that again any time soon!"

It may be "bad form" to quote myself but my "publisher" (me) says "go for it!. And, since I always obey my "publisher", I did "go for it!".

I still remember getting my butt chewed by some clown on a Science Fiction talk list by violating some rule I'd never heard of. A couple of other people wrote me and said this "clown" thought he was the ultimate expert on whatever the subject was and jumped all over anyone who had a differeing opionion.

Another time, I posted on a BBS (in Moline Illinois) a "survey" from an email humour magazine. I was blasted by a number of angry people and the BBS admin kicked me off that BBS "for my own good".

Damn people! It was just a joke! (It was in 1995 from a humour magazine run from MIT.)

Charlie is back home...and I quoted BGEN Jack O'Neille!

My brother Charlie refused to let the surgeons cut off his left leg at the knee and talked them into alternative surgery. The MDs said his arteries from mid left calf on down were basically trashed. They wanted to whack off his left leg. (So what if poor Charlie would be stuck in a wheel chair and legless? The boys in the body shop -er- prosthesis creation centre need the work! The girls in the their rehab department need the work! I guess that hospital just isn't getting the surge of walkering wounded or perhaps I should say unwalking wounded from the various wars...)

Instead, the surgeons took a healthy vein from Charlie's left thigh and used it to replace a trashed artery in his left calf. This replacement went from a healthy sourse to the ulser. The ulser is being given a plentiful blood supply and is healing.

"Well and good!"

What the fuck is he going to do when the next ulser opens up on his left foot? The supply of "good veins" in his left thigh is very, very, very limited! Soon enough, his thigh will be in grave danger...

But, he saved his leg and that is a wonderful thing.

He also refused to go to a rehab centre because he simply wanted to get home. This was short term smart (sort of) and long term foolish. He would have benefited from (another) course of rehab...

"Or not"
        BGEN Jack O'Neille from Stargate

A1C day...

Bottom line: My A1C was 6.8. My MD wants that lower...

Six months ago, my A1C was tested at the local clinic and was 6.8. Three months ago, it was tested at the VA Clinic (actually, they sent it off to some undisclosed location) and was 7.2. So, I went on the wagon, started eatting at least one salad a day and really really cut down on the carbs.

I also got more enthused about the walking (still can't force myself to do shitups and pushups...)

So, my MD, not referring to the outside test had Midge (his nurse) call me at work with the results and told me "the Doctor wants that to come down. Cut out the carbs" Well, I'm in complete agreement with Midge and Dr. Hotstetter on that...

We did go out to dinner last night, to celebrate me having taken the A1C test. We went to Arby's and
had steak and garlic mashed potatoes and a really decadent desert!

It was wonderful.

Two hours after I finished eatting, my blood sugar was 225!

Two hundred and twenty five!

That is the highest I've seen it on a test I did myself. So, I guess that wonderful desert really is sweet poison. I won't be doing that again any time soon!

ah...the joys of "phone home"...

I called my Mother last night and after talking for under five minutes, she said she was sick and hung up. I called my youngest brother to see how he was doing and after a briefer phone call, he said he had to go to the bathroom and hung up. So, either I've irritated both or I've called so many times lately that getting a phone call from me is no big deal. Well, I think it should be...

I think I'll put off "phoning home" for a week or two. My wife suggested that I call one of other two brothers, to see if they're sick as well. However, I decided to pass on that one. I've called them both less than a handful of times in the past decade. None of us would really know how to react. Their wives and kids certainly wouldn't...

A1C coming up...

Every three months, I'm supposed to have a blood test to determine my A1C level. So, for the past three weeks or so, I've been trying to "finese the test". That is,'m trying to "eat good". It has been damned hard; I've been on the wagon for this three weeks and have been getting far more cranky (I guess I'm a bit more in love with gin and tonics or beer that I'd like to be.)

I expect to get a score of 6.8 or so. If it is 7.0, then at least it'll be lower than my last score (7.2). If it exceeds 7.2, then I'm going to have the dispairing feeling of "what's the point"? If going hard core doesn't work, what will work for the rest of my life?

no news...

I tried calling my brother's hospital room but got no answer. I also tried calling my Mother and had to leave a note on her voice mail. This was two days ago and I'm just hoping all is well. I'll have to call again tonight.

Chalie is getting better...

My brother told me that he'll be sprung from hospital as soon as the "swelling in his scrotum" goes down. That'll be good, very good! He's been in hospital for about 2 months and is desparate to:

* get back to his apartment,
* have privacy from well intended stranger,
* have privacy from bumbling folks entering "his" room by accident,
* cook his own food,
* decide when to sleep, etc.,
* look for a job,
* be able to move about society as he sees fit!

The appeals judge decided Charlie was wrongfully fired and that he is entitled to unemployment and most especially back unemployment!

The morals of the story are:
* A long term diabetic can have horrible health and
* Some companies will shitcan employees who have the gall to get sick!

It makes me quite grateful that I've got a good union to back me if I eventually fall ill like my brother Charlie! I'll know then that the union dues I've paid all these many years is finally paying off...

rain on the parade or the possible downside of inhailed insulin...

This extract from an article on Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/2135087/) by Emily Biuso on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006, is a bit less upbeat...

"The new insulin product, which will be sold under the brand name Exubera by Pfizer, may be available as soon as this summer. But the picture isn't entirely rosy: Some doctors are worried that Exubera's risks to lungs have not been properly tested and that inhaled insulin causes minor declines in the amount of air the lungs can hold. The FDA recommended that asthmatics, smokers, and others avoid the product, and the long-term effects are still unknown.

The WSJ points out that it's been a good week for Pfizer: On Thursday, the FDA approved another of the company's drugs, Sutent, as a treatment for two kinds of cancer."

This was quoted without permission but should be adequately sourced to avoid violating copyright...

My MD thinks I'm still at least a decade from needing needles (injected insulin) and so I'll wait to see the long term results. I'm in no hurry to add the expense of yet another medication...

bad boys, bad boyz...

We've probably all seen dibetics injecting insulin in the evening prior to eatting some cake or doing some drinking.

* My late Father used to inject before having a few beers too many with a steak dinner and eatting some cake. (This according to family stories; I didn't personally witness it.)

* Christmas of 2003, we were at my brother Charlie's house. He gestered me into the kitchen and he injected whilst telling me that "I'm going to have some of Roxie's cake".

* My boss and I both knew a man in Chicago who was caught injecting in the office "kitchen"; Carl explained he "was going to a party tonight and I'm going to have some choclate cake". This was about 1993; Carl retired around 1998; Carl died of heart failure in either 2001 or 2002.

I suppose you could say "Carl retired from life 'in either 2001 or 2002'?" Or maybe this is too morbid...

The dosage had to have been a WAG (Wild Ass Guess) or if they'd bothered checking their blood sugar level a SWAG (Scientic Wild Ass Guess)!

Maybe being able to inhail insulin could lead to a different senario:

The good news is such dibetics might do the "exhail, take a deep breath and hold it as long as you can" routine (I use an asmatha inhalor occassionally) and could be getting that added insulin needful for drinking too much beer or eatting too much cake!

The following conversation could occurr:

"Mike is snorting something."
"You don't suppose he's snorting coke?"
"Nah! He's too damn cheap! He's a piss beer drinker!"

"Piss" beer referrs to Budwiser and not the outstanding Michlob...real Michlob, no "lite" beers and certainly not that horrid/horrible Michlob "Ultra"!

DISCLAIMER "Michael" most emphatically discourages the useage of illegal drugs. "Michael" firmly believe that one can get fucked up quite adequately on legal drugs...

good news about inhalable insulin...

This article is basically "good news coming":
27-JAN-2006 FDA Expected to OK Inhaled Form of Insulin

This article, ironically issued the same day as the previous article basically says the "good news is here!:
27-JAN-2006 FDA Approves Inhalable Version of Insulin.
Here is a confirming article from CNN:
same good news!

A nice news source for diabetics.

Charlie as of 28 January 2006

He's not answering his phone and our Mother is distraut!

Something is very wrong with my brother and the MDs apparently can't figure it out. He's now got swelling including what my Mother told my wife, "swelling in his scrotum". (A big of graveyard humour here: My brother always joked about having "big balls" but that was a joke and this isn't a fucking joke!)

Last night, at work, a friend of mine asked me "how is your brother doing"? So I told him. His wife is a surgical nurse and Tim has absorbed enough of that mindset to realize how serious my brother's conditions really are.

I'm scared and would go out to Oregon if I thought it would do any good...

talking with Charlie, post surgery...

I just called my brother and this was the first time I've gotten thru to him since his surgery.

"Charlie, I've been trying to get a hold of you."
"Hi, Mike, can I call you later? I'm getting sick to my stomach."
"Utrrr, uh, bye."

I don't like to think I make my brother "sick to my stomach" so I'll blaim the "pain meds" and the lingering infections. I think I'll go walk now and enjoy having feet (even if my right toes are sore). So, I won't be home if he calls later...

news on the medical front...

The local cardiologist spoke at Lions Club.

Here are some quotes:

"Seventy percent of diabetics die of heart problems." (My Father died of congestive heart failure.)

"If you have a diabetic, you have vacular problems." (Can't argue with that...)

"The single best exercise you can do is walking." (Thank God for that! Walking is about the only heart helping exercise that I like and certainly the only one I can do with screwing up my feet due to stress fractures. If there are indoor swimming pools in town, I neither have heard of them and have to assume they'd be too expensive should they exist...)

"[It is] very important to watch your diet." That can be hard to do and losing weight can be damned hard - if not nearly impossible at my age - to do!

We faced the embarrasment of letting Dr. Kahn order a salad that turned out to be loaded with bacon. It wasn't deliberate. Lion Kathie and I were mortified to learn that a Muslim had been allowed to innocently order a pork product (i.e. bacon).

He spoke of future plans to bring in a heart surgeon and that southwest Kansas could exceed the minimum number of cases per year (200/year) that a "cardio" surgeon needs to keep in practice. This is both good in the sence of us getting a "chest cutter" and bad in that so many of us would need this surgeon. Such is the life that comes from living in a society of abundance...

eating bad and poverty (an antedotal link)

I went to high school in Biloxi Mississippi and lived in base housing on Keesler Air Force Base (my Father was Air Force). At the  basel theatre, the folks who sold popcorn, coke (nothing diet mind you) and candy were a black family of Mom, Dad and (presumedly) Oldest Daughter. At the time, I was worried about being 5 to 10 pounds overweight. All three of these folks had to have been 30 to 50 pounds overweight. They were obviously working at the theater to supplement the Dad and Mom's incomes.

I was ignorant enough to wonder how they could afford to eat enough to be so fat. I later learned that it wasn't from eating too much, it was from eating the wrong food!

I was laid off November 1989 and it wasn't until 1995 that my new job began paying me well enough for us to have decent food. I ate so much white rice with soy sauce and a little bit of tuna that my boss told me to eat something else. So, having gotten a bit of a pay raise (this was 1991), I started taking baked or mashed potatoes and overly cooked hamburger to work (not always but enough to be noticed). My boss gave up on tryng to get me to eat right. That was too bad...

The result of eatting what I later learned was the wrong food was:

* I gained 70 pounds,
* My blood pressure went up and I may have had a stroke (I'm being treated for hypertension)
* I became a type 2 dibetic (I'm being treated for this with metformin.)
* I eat much better and exercise now but I can't seem to lose that damned weight...

So, I have the answer to my question of why those three poor black folks were so fat. They ate what they could buy and what they bought was very bad for them!

CAVATE TIME: These black salespeople may have been well off and may have been working at the theater simply to meet folks coming to the theater. Sounds good but isn't consistent with the culture of Southern Mississippi in the late 1960s and they never struck me as being willing to talk with the audience (mostly white folks that we were). I could be wrong but I strongly feel I'm not. Alas...

latest and not very greatest on my brother...

At 4 pm, 18 January 2006, my Mother called and left this message on the answerig machine:

"Charlie is in a lot of pain and throwing up."

The surgery lead to beaucoup pain and the pain meds coupled with the shock led to a lot of vomiting. The vomiting means he can't keep anything down and that also will make getting his blood sugar under control a real bitch for the medics. I wish them all well!

What I wrote in irony is apparently true in fact: vomito ergo sum (I vomit, therefore I am)

Under the circumstances, it has suddenly lost it's humour.

NOTE: "Beaucoup" (bo' - coo) is French for "lots of".

some venting, some frustration, some fear...

I just called my brother's room, gave the person (a woman) who answered my name and asked for my brother. I then was put on hold and hung up after 3 minutes.

I called again, said who I was and that I was calling long distance. The same voice told me "I told you, you've got the wrong number". I snarled back "No, you didn't. I want to talk to a nurse". The bitch hung up right after I said "didn't". I was so tempted to call back and spit out "BITCH" to her when she answered the phone but I won't. I'll just bitch about it...

I'll call our Mother and maybe email my brother...

...two minutes later...

I just got my Mother's answering machine and left a message asking about my brother. He is probably in recovery or ICU and I don't have that umber. On the positive side, if they'd whacked his leg off or if he'd died on the table, someone in the family would have called by now. My family has a bad history of not giving out bad news...

I have to go to work in 20 minutes and this aborted telephone tag and venting this is keeping me from "At All Costs" by David Weber.

Now, about 15 minutes later, I'm feeling guilty about being rude to this bitch, who is a patient at the hospital. Oh, well, she didn't handle it very well either. Normally, I'm a very nice person but when I'm scared, I tend not to be quite so sweet.

partial news...

About 5:20 pm PST yesterday, my brother Jim called the house and reported that Charlie was still in surgery. That was the last word received when I got home at 11:15 pm CST (9:15 PST). So, I guess "no news is good news.

I'll have to call him this afternoon and just hope he remembered my work email address.

pre-surgury for Charlie...

I talked with my brother Charlie about 8:10 am Pacific time. As of then, they were planning on doing the vein transplant and will operate sometime this afternoon (Oregon time). He sounded up beat and alert but mentioned that he'd not had much sleep. It seems the nurses had been coming in every thirty minutes during the night to poke a hole in one of his fingers in order to check his blood sugar. This seemed excessive to me but then medical folks have their own strange ways.

My Mother, family friend Steve or our brother Jim will call me at work tonight with the results or call my wife. If this doesn't work, Jim has my work email address. Since Jim knows it is bad form to send bad news via email, I'll just have to hope he didn't see the need to email me (assuming that he doesn't email).

As I was writing that last sentence, I could just picture the disdain on my 8th grade English teacher's face; worst, I could picture the much more massive disdain on my 9th grade English teacher's face! (Maybe that's why I'm not fond of public school English teachers to this day???)

status on my brother Charlie...

As of last Thursday night, my brother Charlie was sort of scheduled for the vein replacement surgery on Tuesday 17 January 2006. Fortunately, however, his MD was very reluctant to see this happen. The good MD, while expressing his support for Charlie and stating that he would not derail the operation, thought it futile. It sounded like Charlie was beginning to come around to this viewpoint.

I do worry about him...

My brother Charlie remains in hospital...

I called my Mother last night to ask how she is doing and how my brother Charlie is doing. She said the surgeons were going to do a artery replacement. The veins in is left leg are closing up and not allowing sufficient blood flow. That is the reason the ulser on his left heel isn't healing. So, the surgeons want to take a "healthy" vein and run if from the "healthy" arteries nearest the ulser to the ulser. The premise is this will lead to a much higher blood flow and healing.

I told my Mother, "if the veins are so bad, then he's lucky to still have the leg."

She sniffed and I finally realized that I should have kept my big mouth shut. "You don't want to talk about this?"

"I can't", she said and I changed the subject.

Charlie was born after my parents thought their "family making days" were over. Since I was 14 when he was born, I became the built-in-baby sitter and (happily) the doting oldest brother who did his best to spoil "his boy". His life has not been a wonderful as we had hoped it would be; the juvenile onset diabetes, along with some other problems, lead to that. (It is admissions like this that keep me from blurting out who I am; I just don't want the family to know I'm pulling "a Howard Stern" and am letting the one or two readers of this electron rag "see the private parts". Oh well...

Back to practicing medicine without a license.

But, if the other veins are shot and are letting very little blood through, this seems like a pointless and ultimately futile operation. If what they told my brother Jim is correct, Charlie will end up losing the leg anyway. In my opinion, he will have suffered a useless operation. On the other hand, he would have kept that left leg a few days or weeks longer and will be able to scratch his calf or stretch it or even walk about on it for that extra time.

That alone may make this replacement worth doing...

I called him last night (after talking with our Mother) and he couldn't talk. He'd suffered a severe reaction to the (anti) "pain meds" the night before and had spent the night vomiting. (Something I'm used to from a couple of bouts of food poisoning in the local area.) His being a type 1 diabetic meant that he was losing any food he may have eatten and was unable to keep down anything.

So, the infection probably jacked up his blood sugar and the vomiting may well have lowered it (or raised it, I'll have to ask the "American Diabetics Association").

But, back to his leg. Even if this operation simply lets him keep his let for days or weeks longer, he will have had the leg that much longer. That is a good thing, even if his "co-payments" will continue to escaliate. What the hell, he's probably so in debt that only bankruptcy under the old rules could have saved him. Under the new rules, he fucked! Ah, another thing we can thank "our" Congress-critters for!!! (If irony were cash I'd be rich after that statement!)

It also galls me since I'm a life long Republican (but think the individual is more important than the company so maybe I'm really a Democrat?).

Maybe it really is the carbs??

Day before yesterday (10 January 2006), I should have gotten off work at noon and had lunch about 12:20 pm. Instead, I worked overtime to 1:30 pm due to a computer system I was changing passwords going tits up. Well, only one of the computers went tits up and we were able to force it to accept a new "root" password...

I left word at 1:35 pm (or so) dropped off a suit coat at the dry cleaner and thought of going to "a nice place" (nice for diabetics anyway). But I was hungry and didn't...

Being very hungry, I went to King's Buffet and had entirely too much "oriental" food. I had one plate of chicken and beef, about a tablespoon of noodles and maybe a third cup of sliced potatoes. Then, another plate of chicken, pork and more chicken and about the same amount of potatoes. Desert was a small bown of ice cream (which I didn't finish) and part of a creme puff (which looks a whole lot better than it tasted!)

I figured it was going to be a good thing I'll have about 5 hours
and 20 minutes between getting done then and testing my blood sugar at 7:15 pm. At 5:10 pm, I ate a salad that was mostly lettuce, several slices of peperoni, some cheese and a half cup or so of cottage cheese.

Desert, of course, was Pepto-Bismol...

I thought my blood sugar would be too damn high. It was 104!

Yup, 104!

This is better than many of my morning fasting readings.

Either the machine is off (unlikely) or the lunch I'd had was basically meat with very little in the way of carbs. My dinner was salad with very little in the way of carbs.

This business of trying to "manage" my diabetics often perpluxes me...

my diabetics coaches advice!

Go Diabetic Go!

Go Diabetic Go!

Go Diabetic Go!

Rah! Rah! Rah!

Actually, she didn't but she was encouraging and gave me some good advise.

"micturre ergo sum"...a diebetic's motto...

"micturre ergo sum"

This is my new motto and is Latin for "I urinate, therefore I am" (roughly translatted). Actually, in Latin,

"micturre" means "to want to urinate ",
"ergo" means "therefore" and
"sum" (roughly) "I am".

Hence, "micturre ergo sum", "I piss (urinate), therefore I am".