#diabetes amputation

[satisfiedskye]

i think its about time i made the post I've been meaning to make. i just want it out of the way.

my father passed june 27th. it was sudden, a motorcycle accident that was not his fault in the slightest. my mother was also in the accident, but survived. however, she lost a leg, among having other injuries. she will be in hospitals/rehabilitation for a long time. I'm a disabled person, as you may know as I've talked about my coma in 2022 from autoimmune encephilitis, and my many autoimmune diseases. life is both very hard right now, and has me very anxious. in the future, there will be a gofundme for my mothers needs medically, and insurance wise. my fathers job was our families insurance... and on top of her own medical expenses, I need steroids and insulin and all of my other medication to stay alive and care for her. for now, Im linking my ko-fi, as a way to get any sort of income right now. donations are very VERY appreciated right now. i also sell stickers there, and will be selling more stuff soon, so keep an eye out for posts about new stuff ! thank you very much. please share and reblog this, I'm trying my best to just be.. okay, right now.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Cheryl LaBash

In a welcome breakthrough on April 10, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration greenlighted the phase 3 study of Heberprot-P, a Cuban medicine developed by the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) that has been shown to reduce diabetic amputation by more than 70 percent.

Why did it take so long? The failure of the U.S. to normalize relations with the Republic of Cuba has forced even urgent health initiatives like this one to thread its way through an insidious web of laws, regulations, and executive orders that only apply to Cuba.

[lilalilan]

Putting this in it's own post to not detract but like. There is no such thing as sugar addiction.

If you aren't eating carbs/sugars, your body craves those things because it needs them. Your body depends on sugar for energy, and if you aren't consuming enough you're going to crave it so that you eat and correct the deficiency, just like with anything else your body needs.

If you are eating carbs/sugars regularly, especially if it feels like you can never get enough of them and it feels like you're addicted, please get checked out for diabetes mellitus.

What diabetes mellitus boils down to is the body being unable to process sugar, either because it doesn't make insulin (type 1) or because it can't use the insulin it makes (type 2). Insulin is a hormone the body needs in order to use the sugar in your blood. This leads to high blood sugar levels, weight gain, being thirsty often/drinking a lot of water, and frequent urination, because the body can't get the sugar out of the bloodstream so either stores it as fat or gets rid of it in urine (and has you drink a lot of water to make that happen).

Diabetics don't crave sugar because they're addicts who can't get control of themselves, they crave sugar because their body desperately needs it but is struggling to use what they're giving it, because it's having issues with insulin.

Going in for a diabetes diagnosis can be scary and stressful, usually due to the stigma and fatphobia/fatshaming diabetes patients often have to deal with. A lot of people are uneducated about diabetes and see it as a punishment for eating unhealthily, and if you have or have had this view in the past it can be really upsetting and scary to think that you might be diabetic. Despite what the stigma may have led you to believe, diabetes is often in large part genetic, and people who are predisposed to it can have it triggered by anything from stress to covid to seemingly nothing at all. But even if you did cause your diabetes or make it worse by eating a lot of sugar/carbs, you deserve compassion and you deserve care, you deserve accurate information about how your body does/doesn't work, and you deserve treatment free from judgement and blame.

Diabetes is manageable, it is something you can live with. Diet and exercise can help, but in the long term even folks who've made lifestyle changes usually need medication, because lifestyle changes don't change the fact that your body is struggling to make/use insulin.

For something relatively common, diabetes isn't well understood by most people, and the actual symptoms of it are often overlooked because of that. Hunger even after eating, especially after eating carbs/sugar, and constantly craving carbs/sugars, was what led my doctor to assess me for diabetes, so if that's something you struggle with please consider looking into diabetes.

[arainmorn-art]

A path of self-destruction

So I’ve seen that 14th March is Write Your Story day. Sounds neat, though I have no ideas for fiction to write about right now. But I have a personal story. I wanted to write about it for quite some time, because for some weird reason I feel more comfortable writing about some psychological stuff in English. It seems easier - and safer. Here might be no people that know me personally. And with a small audience it also feels... like I am in a small circle of silent respectful strangers, telling my story without a chilling fear of being interrupted or shunned. Or being avoided. 

People don’t like sad body horror stories. 

It’s an act of self-preservation for sure, our mind tries to protect us from horrible things, as it tries to be a protective parent guarding its kid. I understand it. It’s not like I tell the whole story to everyone, firstly it would take a long time, secondly - I don’t like making people upset. If people around me, who like me, are getting upset only by mentioning a miniscule part of stuff, why should I force them to listen the rest?

But sometimes... I need to tell it. 

Heh. And how should I begin?

“There once was a girl with a loving family. She had both parents, a mother and a father. But strangely the girl was growing up strongly relating to fatherless kids her age. She was growing up waiting for her father’s death”

An intriguing kind of start, I hope. 

The thing is it’s quite hard for me to tell you about only this part of my forming years, because right after high school there were also several traumatic circumstances I lived with, and stories about my dad and the coup, and the civil war, and severe trust issues, and loosing a feel of basic safety, and a crushing feeling of being a hated outsider in my own country are heavily intertwined. But... I doubt my writing abilities to tell you everything in one post. Maybe next time. I’ll mention those situations briefly, just keep in mind that... well, it was all happening at the same time.

So.

“She was a shy girl, whimsy and timid, a kind that usually becomes some sort of an artist. Five years might be not the best age to learn about death, but this realization came to her quite early. We all gonna die, she realizied, and nothing will stop it. She cried and ran to the kitchen to her mom, looking for comfort, but mom couldn’t say anything to console her. “It happens in many years!”, she tried to tell her crying daughter. She wasn’t expecting this conversation so soon”

I don’t know how others get this awarness of their own mortality. I simply haven’t asked, actually. I got mine after watching Conan the Barbarian and The Fifth Element movies. Oh, and add Princess Mononoke to this soup. And many 80s and 90s scince fiction and action movies, that were by far not kid-friendly! Yeah... my mom admits she and my dad were stupid to show me these movies before elementary school, but now I can tell young gen-Ziers that in my time we were much tougher kids!.. Well, come on, don’t give away all the credits to Don Bluth, a Grand Child Traumatizer, an old Total Recall was a blast! :D 

My mom also thinks that there were too many familiar people who died through my forming years, both relatives and friends. I don’t know, maybe she is right. My grandpa was buried at the day of my 14th birthday, a year before two family friends died, a year after there were grand-grandma and three family friends, and many more...

14 years old. Yeah. I remember, it was a first time when I thought: “My dad will probably die because of a stroke. His face gets so red when he is screaming in anger”. 2008 year, hello, House M.D., teaching me new words.    

“A girl was told by her dad that she had a happy childhood, a roof above her head, a food on her table and some money. Often told. Constantly told. It was true, but was there a need to repeat it? He needed to. He also told her he can clearly see she doesn’t value anything he gave her. That she doesn’t respect him. He demanded love. He believed there were all the ingredients for happiness. He was telling it but he rarely talked to her. They lived in one appartment yet she felt they were a little closer than strangers”

My dad was a complicated man to say the least. He was a large man with a strong physique, a wide chest yet narrow shoulders. His features were rounded: a round face, a big nose, plump lips, bushy eyebrows, even his black beard was making him feel rounder. My whole childhood I was told I was a female copy of him. He was a man leaving a grand impression about him, a succesful man, loved by his friends, relatives and wife... and strangely enough he was also an absent father.

 For some reason I still can vividly remember his dark yellow teeth, black on the edges, and a brown tongue behind them. He drank a very strong black tea, 2 to 4 teabags at the same time in a large cup. The stains after such tea was impossible to wash away. Oh, and I just have to mention the amount of smoking he had. Pack after pack. Some fathers quit smoking when they get kids. My father was smoking even when I, being an infant, was sleeping near him in my mom’s embrace. I never smoked myself. Never ever. 

The smell of cigarettes was everywhere. It was on the furniture, on my clothing, on my hair. The smell was so strong sometimes my teachers in school were asking if somebody recently smoked, although I was a whole day away from home. The smoke turned wallpapers in my dad’s room yellow; a lamp, a table, a computer and bookshelves had a very distinct greasy feel about them because of resin and dust. Maybe only whiskey and vodka bottles were cleaner. They were changing often.

My mom was worried about him. She called it “a path of self-destruction”.

And he still had a leg in those years.

It was 2011, I was still 16, soon turning 17, when I heard about the second type diabetes. I didn’t understand how it workes, but the most shocking news were: “They are going to amputate your father’s big toe”. Oh man, it’s so silly now how scared I was. 

It’s just a toe. 

What’s weird to me to remember that from this and several years later I was fixated on the topic of amputation. It was a repeating theme in my sketches... though it weren’t legs. It were hands. A crying mermaid with amputated hands. A cheerful alien with stumps instead of her arms, with clunky prosthesises made of thin metal tubes. A monster bleeding out with a chopped arm. Zombies falling apart. Decaying robots. A blood. A torn skin. Scars. Bare bones. And crying. Lots of crying characters. It was my weird way of coping. 

So the doctors kept slicing his foot until there were no toes on it.

I thought he was powerful. I thought he could hurt me, though not physically. He never beated me, no. Though I was so stressed I believed my scared mom, that he could kicked us out of the house. 

Bones in my dad’s foot were destructing, because he was refusing to change his lifestyle, even at cost of his own health.

I was 19. It still is a gentle age for a girl. I needed a feeling of safety... and yes, I had it at home. While also being afraid of my dad’s rage, if he knew about my sexuality.

Even if he was already in a wheelchair without a leg. 

And then the coup in 2014 happened. I lived several districts away from it. For me it was one of the most traumatising events. It was brutal. I was afraid I could be killed just while walking with my dog. The world I’ve lived before was burning alive in front of my eyes. People were drunk of inpunishability. A feeling of safety was lost for many years. 

The only thing in her terrified words might be true that he could turn our lives into emotional torture. Oh, he was very good at making you feel like a trash. Like the lowest of the low. Like a pathetic piece of a garbage.

 My father was afraid of death and uncertainty. Numbing himself with alcohol he was able to push through those fears and take care of me and my mom. The truth is... he was a weak man, too. Instead of trying to discipline himself so diabetes would stop devouring his body, the bloodvessels in his brain, his eyes, his legs, his kidneys, my father just... stayed on the path of self-destruction.

No cries would convince him to change so he could stay longer with his loving family.

No foul wound would stop him.

I was 21. I remember that night, when he returned from the hospital. He seriously was at the death’s door. Before his return I’ve cried for several hours feeling guilt that I was angry at him, being horrified that I might loose him. When he returned, I thought about all the inspirational movies I’ve watched, you know, that kind: “After near death experience our protagonist will find a will power to change his life!”. I loved such kind of movies. 

I wanted them to be truth.

I’ve heard my mom starting to weep when she walked out of my dad’s room, yellow of nicotine. I walked into his room and saw him... smoking and pouring a glass. He wanted to relax. As if nothing has happened. As if me and my mom hadn’t cried our eyes out for him.

It was the first time I’ve screamed at him in rage. I was afraid of my dad for those last years, I was always meek and passive around him because he would easily suppres me. But I was enraged at that moment. How dare he smoke after everything. How dare he drink after what doctors told us: “You can start mourning”, because his kidneys were clearly failing. And he was surprised, of course. He started laughing at me. “Look at you! You can be like that?”. I remember his dark yellow teeth glistening in the light of a table lamp. He was laughing in self-defense.

“Hey, look at her!” - he called my mom, rolling his wheelchair to the bathroom door. He kept laughing, almost hysterically, as we both could clearly hear my mom hopelessly crying in the shower.

I felt so much disdain, and anger, and sadness, but most of all - the horror of understanding. Dad was still laughing. My outburst had no other way to leave my chest but to shout at the top of my lungs right in my father’s face: “I wish you would die already!”

He stopped laughing.

I ran to the kitchen and burst into tears sitting on the floor, as that new realization weakened my knees.

There was no hope.

It was not an inspirational movie. It was not a fairytale. It was not a story about taking control over your life and trying to save it. 

It was a story about unstoppable relentless self-destruction. No matter how many bones would crumble, how much flesh would be cut away, how further blind he would become.

It was despair. Soul-crushing despair. In the chaotic world after the coup, during the civil war, where it still felt safer beside my half-blind father with no leg on the wheelchair, than far from him... there were no hope that he would live long enough to even see me graduating from university.

About two more times he was also near death. Diabetes killed his kidneys.

“There once was a boy in a body of a big grown man. Both of his parents died of cancer. His lighthearted yet timid father faded away, turned into a skeleton covered with skin. His narcissistic mother, who looked like a giant jellyfish on her deathbed, died right after her son scolded her for tormenting a nurse. The boy was so lonely and sad no one around him could bring him comfort. Even the sight of sauce that his mother cooked him in the past could brought him into tears. It reminded him how harsh he was with her right before she died. He didn’t say goodbye. Or that he loved her”

I haven’t told my father a proper goodbye either.

I was abroad trying to date a girl that was clearly not a good match for me. I was looking for comfort and haven’t find any. My mother hasn’t told me anything before I returned home. She thought I was happy and didn’t wanted to ruin that trip for me. For several days she was forcing a smile for me during videocalls.

It was cerebral edema. He died at night, delirious and screaming, shouting us to run away, so the infamous nazi gang from my country wouldn’t catch us. She told me when I’ve returned home and at first I haven’t any words to say or any tears to cry.

The 6th January of 2017 was the date of his death.

He kept slowly dying over the next couple of years.

People were confused how I could be so stoic at the funeral. I don’t know myself. I just felt hollow. My mom though was falling apart, overventilating as she tried not to cry while seeing her husband in the coffin. She asked my cousin to slap her across the face so she would no lose consciousness - and yeap, it was me who slaped her, as my cousin was too shocked by such request. I felt that me being calm and stable helped my mom more than anything. I supported her. I gave her comfort. The world was crushing for her without him.

While I was thinking... that, strangely enough, my world continued to exist.

I’ve cried for my father’s death several times, but the death itself wasn’t happening. And when it finally happened, there were not many tears left. Though I still feel the ache in my heart for him. He was so lonely. He had such a big responsibility on his shoulders, he continued to work even in the hospital bed so he could provide us. He tried to protect us from the evil of the world around us even at his last moments.

I respect it tremendously, dad.

I’ve looked into my old drawings I have on my PC. My gosh. So many crying people. I haven’t realized before, how many tears were shed without actual tears, but through my artwork.

It’s such a pity we couldn’t became closer.

Eh.

It’s been six years.

I suppose I can say I’m no longer a person I used to be. I hope so. I was such a coward. 

It’s 3 am on my clock, I’ve been writing for five hours in one sit, gosh darn it. Perhaps I really needed it.    

And I feel better.

Despite everything happened between us, I still love you.

[rebelbyrdie]

TW:  Trauma, Medical Stuff...Storytime Rant

So for anyone not caught up with the drama that is my life, I was in the hospital for 33 days, but the story starts way before that.  This is about to get personal so, yeah.  This one is long and has a lot of details.  

I have  type 2 diabetes. I was diagnosed with PCOS at 20 and diabetes at 25 (on my birthday...total bummer).  About 2 years ago I had a sore on my right foot.  I thought it was just a cracked callous, but it would not heal.  My wife (then girlfriend) took me to the walk-in clinic and then the ER.  The ER diagnosed the wound as a diabetic ulcer and referred me to a podiatrist.  We will call him Dr. B.

So I spend 2 years with Dr. B.  I was there 1 to 2 times a month.  He would use a scalpel to scrape off dead skin, give me creams and wrap my foot.  I then developed a second ulcer on my left foot. 

Now all this time we are slowly getting it smaller and better looking...until I lost my insurance when I switched jobs.  I had to choose between going to my regular doc for diabetes and Dr. B.  I chose Dr. B because I had open wounds that had to be seen to.

August 2022 the right foot gets infected.  We immediately go to Dr. B.  He takes XRays, gives me antibiotics, and assures me that I did nothing wrong, that these things happen with open wounds.  He examined the xrays and assured me the bone was not infected (spoiler alert:  it was).  The infection clears up and all is well (it wasn’t).

Life goes on, I get married, go on honeymoon, have a nice Thanksgiving.  Then I started to feel bad on my first day of my Christmas vacation.  Fever, chills, general shittiness.  I thought I had the flu.  My right ankle and foot swelled, but I  chocked that up to an old injury in that foot and the cold snap (we were in the teens in TN).  I got through Christmas (I don’t remember much) but I wasn’t getting better.

I went to the walk in clinic.  Negative for flu and covid. They said it was a stomach bug.  At that point I was vomiting up everything I ate/drank.  They gave me anti nausea meds and sent me home.  The next day I was still vomiting despite the meds so we went to the ER.  

At the ER I saw a doctor...I’ll call her Dr A.  Dr A told me I had a gut infection of some kind and/or my gallbladder was infected.  I told her about the ulcers and swelling, but she never examined my foot.  THey did bloodwork and though my white blood cell count was higher than usual, they felt it was not something to worry about.  A stronger anti nausea med and antibiotics and they sent me home.

On Dec 31st I was still sick with a high fever and other fun stuff.  My mom came over, she looked at me, checked my leg and immediately took me back to the ER.  Dr. A was on shift and she came to look at me again. She still advised it was my gallbladder. My mom made her look at my foot.  Still swollen and now red. "Does this look like her gallbladder?!”  I was finally admitted.  It turns out I was sceptic.  So I got IV meds and a lot of scans.  They did an abdominal scan and sent the surgeon to examine my gall bladder.  He was pissed and said that it was obviously my leg and a blood infection.

More scans revealed that I had a bone infection in both my left and right feet.  I honestly don’t remember much about this part of things.  I was kinda activly dying.  THe small town hospital I was at could not handle my case so they sent me an hour away to a bigger hospital.  I arrived in the evening, those  surgeons (Dr G and Dr C)  saw me in the morning and I was having my right leg removed that afternoon.  Later they removed part of my left foot too (goodbye pinkie toe).  After a week I was off to rehab.  I did pretty well at rehab.  Now I’m home.

Now there are some behind the scenes shenanigans. Remember Dr. B?  Yeah it turns out that back in August I already had bone damage (from infection) in my right foot.  Dr. C thought I’d had surgery on it.  About 1/3 of the bone was already gone...destroyed by infection.  I actually noticed that my pinkie toe looked odd on the xray and asked if it could be because I was developing a bunion and he said “maybe”.  He cleared me on Dec 14th when I was definitely infected for sure and said he’d run my insurance for skin grafts to close the holes.  When Dr C did my examination prior to surgery he was able to poke his finger through the wound and touch bone.  That is called tunneling and it means that the wound was not just on the surface like I was lead to believe.  

Either Dr B was wildly incompetent or totally negligent.  If they had caught this in August or before (there is some evidence that I may have had bone damage the whole 2 years but that research is ongoing) then I may not have lost my leg and almost my life.  After my amputation, Dr G told my mom and wife that the leg would have killed me even with the antibiotics.  I had literally been on the brink of dying.  I needed 2 post op blood transfusions.

So my wife thinks we should sue Dr B.  I have never really sued anyone.  I was sued once for a car accident when I was 18, but I’ve never really looked into medical negligence/malpractice.  I, obviously, have a lot of medical bills.  Also my house is small and currently navigating it is difficult.  Not to mention lost wages and, well, pain and suffering.  I don’t know if we have a case and I am still unsure it is a good idea to pursue it at all.  

I was raised conservative with the whole pull yourself up by the bootstraps and walk it off mentality.  So while I have educated myself as an adult, the knee jerk reactions of “lawsuits are get rich schemes by fraudsters or people too lazy to work” is still there.  

I am still going to doctors, trying to schedule a counselor, and I will eventually need a prosthetic leg.  Should I really sue the doctor?  I thought about it a long and hard time and did some research.  A small victory could help secure my and my family financially for at least a few years...but I don’t know.  I had a lot going on and couldn’t afford many of my medications so my diabetes was not great. I am very aware that my decisions helped put me in this situation.  I wasn’t on my meds properly, I wasn’t eating as well as I should have, and I didn’t do any 2nd opinions or anything.  It wasn’t just Dr B’s fault, but I certainly feel that as a doctor he did not fufill his duties.

I am currently getting all the records, xrays and 2nd opinions  I can get my hands on, just in case.  

It is a lot and is kind of stressful.  My life is forever changed.  I am conflicted and I am a little bit scared.  My 5 year plan has gone kabloom.  Even if things turn out in my favor and I get money, things are still wildly off kilter for me.

Anyway.  Doctors suck.  Every nurse I spoke to bad-mouthed the American health system and my hospital food is still the worst.

[moacha]

Life is a journey. As individuals we each have are our own journey. No doubt. No question. And we are also on this journey as a collective. ⠀ Every day our paths collide. Intersect. Unite. Intertwine. Crash. Ebb and flow with others. ⠀ Mon Journée is all about my daily journey on this human experience we call life. Join me. Amazing things happen daily. To me. To you. To our journey. 🦋 ⠀ Podcast loading soon 🎙️ YT vlog coming 📺 ⠀ ✨ ⠀ #MonJournée #wellness #healing #survivor #mentalhealth #forgiveness #chronic2terminal #love #scleroderma #fibromyalgia #polymyositis #neuropathy #anxiety #diabetes #mytruth #pulmonaryhypertension #amputation #depression #stemcelltransplant #lightworker #grateful #advocate #art #peace #WeareONE#motivationalspeaker #intuitive #MyDay #MyJourney (at My Journey) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpR_OiGu-Pe/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[diabetes-health-corner]

How uncontrolled diabetes can lead to nerve damage and limb amputation

The insulin deficiency and resultant increase in glucose in the person’s blood can result in several complications in the person’s system – particularly in the nerves, blood vessels, kidneys, heart, vision and limbs.

Read more to know the details: https://www.freedomfromdiabetes.org/blog/post/how-uncontrolled-diabetes-can-lead-to-nerve-damage-and-limb-amputation/3000

[cuidadoscomocorpo]

How Diabetes Affects Your Feet (Diabetic Foot) - Identifying Diabetic Foot Symptoms - Healthy Feet!

In this video, we delve into what diabetic foot problems really look like and provide valuable insights on how diabetes can affect your feet. Learn about common foot issues that can arise from diabetes and discover essential tips for maintaining healthy feet. If you or someone you know is living with diabetes, this video is a must-watch to ensure proper foot care and overall well-being.

Share This Video: https://youtu.be/t2bze6P7vtY

diabeticfootproblems #diabeticfootissues #diabeticneuropathy

[andreiamat]

How Diabetes Affects Your Feet (Diabetic Foot) - Identifying Diabetic Foot Symptoms - Healthy Feet!

In this video, we delve into what diabetic foot problems really look like and provide valuable insights on how diabetes can affect your feet. Learn about common foot issues that can arise from diabetes and discover essential tips for maintaining healthy feet. If you or someone you know is living with diabetes, this video is a must-watch to ensure proper foot care and overall well-being.

[bemestaresucesso]

How Diabetes Affects Your Feet (Diabetic Foot) - Identifying Diabetic Foot Symptoms - Healthy Feet!

In this video, we delve into what diabetic foot problems really look like and provide valuable insights on how diabetes can affect your feet. Learn about common foot issues that can arise from diabetes and discover essential tips for maintaining healthy feet. If you or someone you know is living with diabetes, this video is a must-watch to ensure proper foot care and overall well-being.

[untilthenexttee]

I'm Baaacckkk...

My friends, the road back has been a long one. A journey that I never want to go through again. To sum up like the old American Express commercials… Out for a walk with my puppy. It healed. June 15th. 1st amputation stemming from diabetic foot ulcers that spiralled out of control… $0. Thanks to Canadian health care system Also June 15th. Tendon release of the other four toes on the right…

[moacha]

Remember, your journey is yours. Take your time, love. Be gentle with yourself and your own growth on this journey called life. 🌻 ⠀ I see you 🦋 ⠀ 📷 credit @wonder_doodles ⠀ Podcast loading soon 🎙️ YT vlog coming 📺 ⠀ ✨ ⠀ #MonJournée #wellness #healing #survivor #mentalhealth #forgiveness #chronic2terminal #love #scleroderma #fibromyalgia #polymyositis #neuropathy #anxiety #diabetes #mytruth #pulmonaryhypertension #amputation #depression #stemcelltransplant #lightworker #grateful #advocate #art #peace #WeareONE#motivationalspeaker #MyDay #MyJourney (at My Journey) https://www.instagram.com/p/Coygj3-LIs-/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=