thediabeteschronicles

[thediabeteschronicles]

the meaning of life

oh life, where art thou. funny im back after a few years. like im drunk texting an ex but probably more healthy than actually being drunk and actually texting an ex. I’m one and a half months away from 4 years without a drink of alcohol (unless you count that time i accidentally coughed while gurgling mouthwash that was terrible). pretty safe to say that by now im firmly set in my decision to never drink again. in fact its been so long that ive started to understand things about myself that i didnt realize before, things that may have drove me to drinking the way that i did. you cant really say this to alcoholics because they think that theyre like everyone else but theres nothing wrong with drinking on its own. some people are great at it responsible, moderation, plan ahead and all of that stuff and then you have the “atleast im not puking in the gutter” crowd wich is very much where i was, puking in the gutter that is. im a very introverted person, it takes way more to unlock me than it should take a normal person. drinking seemingly did away with that. cool new friends who liked me, something to do every weekend, people to be with, i had absolutely no idea what i was doing, and in fact i still dont. its probably pretty safe to say that i completely replaced drinking with Magic The Gathering. who saw that coming lol. in my haze of insecurity and low self esteem lately ive sort of looked at that as a bad thing, like i could be doing more for myself like something more productive with my time. but ive started to appreciate what it means to actually be involved in that game. without realizing it it gives me somewhere to be, people to be around, and a healthy hobby to focus my mental energies on, even if im not the best of best im kind of... not there to win all the time as much as im there just to have somewhere to be. i have a little 5 year old nephew. im so glad he has never or will never see me drunk and out of it. a kid is funny. many people have many opinions on the subject. on the surface they can seem like way more than anyone could ever want to deal with. but there are things i cant explain. i cant explain that feeling when you look at a little guy chewing food for instance... i took him to costco the other day with his gramma, my mom, and i waited in line for a membership and i looked over and hes just sitting there chunching his pizza down with his little head just turning everywhere just looking at everything and all i can think is what is his little brain doing right now how does he process this what does he think.  or when hes watching something on tv and starts laughing uncontrolably something happens to me that fascination of his sense of humor his molding into a little person that thinks things are funny, oh my god he talks hecka good now. he asks the tough questions like if santa brought me gifts why where they wrapped in gift wrap that i see in your room LOL, i felt like when i get pulled over and the cop finds weed and asks if ive smoked in the last 24 hours im like um ,noooooooooo.... little guy is also a very large part of where my mental energies go, even though i mentioned magic first lol. being a 90′s kid so very still connected to what childhood was in those times for me, im driven to sort of give him something similar. im at the helm sort of, of making his little universe the coolest it can be. i get to be the uncle that gives him that extra peice of candy or lets him stay up past his bedtime till he passes out or buys him the cool toys he sees on commercials. the sense of responsibility to provide for him is a very good energy to have in my life. even though he isnt all the way mine he is like one or two steps down from being mine lol. you can say what you will about kids, maybe you dont want to have them but i do see now what those parents say when they say that people without kids dont understand, they dont understand that the shitty parts of having to deal with kids are no less shitty but theres is a greater force at work there, something that fills a void. something greater than you is happening at that moment, someone is fully and completely dependent on you to make sure they dont die. this force has helped me. like fuck my self diagnosed depression fuck the way i feel i cant do anything for anybody, i could never have him look at me and say hey can we do this and have me be like naw man im all bummed out im just gonna lay down. things havent been all the way peachy but to cover everything that happened since the last time i blogged would take 12 other blogs the size of this one. that being said i got an offer to move to wyoming and actually almost took it until i told my BFF about it and he quickly got me a job lol. i am so lucky to have that friend and im so klucky to have this job now. literally the convo went hey man shits rough probly move to wyoming friend can get me a job there and hes like what you need a job heres one lol. im not religious or anything but my grampa told me, Mijito a job is a gift from god. but ive evolved past my rabbid preachy atheism (in person) to realize that in his day religion was a powerful force and the economic situation he had in his life was probably very different to mine but what he meant was yo grandson a good job is a very good thing. in his day jobs were laborous and demanding, i sit at a desk answer phones and type on a computer and do math problems... lucky doesent begin to describe it. the road is still bumpy like it is paved with stone. ive seen the third world in the flesh ive smelled it ive felt it ive heard it ive tasted it ive touched it. ive had to read reports of cartel shootings lootings and burnings where my mom is from. ive driven from here to mexico along the way you see the poverty you see the despair you see the gap, but you also see the hospitality you also see people driven to do anything for a little change, kids selling candy on the street trying to clean your windshields trying to hustle anything up. kids my nephews age younger even. we have one shot, and the roll of the dice put me where so many would wish to be in life. compassion and understanding must be the attitude held in life. we must strive to appreaciate what we have because its all we have and we are all in this together. to quote pops from Luke Cage’s tv show, always forward, forward always.

[thediabeteschronicles]

fuck it, a little good news... kinda

Well as of a few years ago ive been through quite a bit. ive had diabetes since i was 16 (im 28 in november 2013) but really only started to try and do something about it a few years ago. it started with my first major hospital visit, as i lay in pain on so many drugs that i slipped in and out of conciousness even mid conversation, just flat pass out or start slurring and not realize it. my galbladder was severely infected and they needed to remove it but my pancreas was also infected and swollen and in the way for the simple procedure. if they were going to do it it was going to have to be the long way... with an incision that would have gone across my whole abdomen. luckily it wasent absolutely necesarry to have that done immediately and the doctor gave me a choice to have it done the complicated way or i could schedule it in the future once my pancreas healed and they were able to do it with tiny incisions. the surgeon said that since the main incision was gonna be directly where my belly button and ab muscles were going to be, belly fat complicates the matter and that the more weight i lost before i had to have the surgery the better and smoother the whole process would be. that was the begining of my efforts to try and handle a little bit better my situation. after that first visit wich was 8 days 5 of wich i was restricted from eating or drinking absolutely anything i had lost 30 pounds. i thought  that was quite a bit and expected it to pile back on as soon as i got out of the hospital. to my surprise i never gained the weight back at all. Well being in the hospital on a routine with meds and food i saw that my sugar levels were controlable and that i did not in fact need to be eating fatty fast foods and high fat foods in general especially since i have a problem with high trycllicerides.Its sad that it had to get to this point the way that i did but whats in the past is in the past and after a long long struggle i was able to adopt better habbits and a more stable frame of mind. i wish i had all of the answers, i wish i could go up to every person in the world and say hey look this is how i overcame alcoholism this is how i overcame my obesity this is how i overcame everything i saw wrong with myself but really all i can do is tell my story. its very personal and i had to fight wars in my head with my demons and i would never look at anyone with the kind of problems that i had and judge them for it. if anything i might be some beacon of hope, some lighthouse in the ditance that might give an example that in fact it is possible. As of my heaviest point ive lost a total of 90 pounds. i havent had a drink since the last day of march, and i went in to the ER the very next day for it in my worst case of pancreatitis to date. The doctor was very angry with me because i lied about drinking and he had sent me home when i needed immediate medical attention and supervision. after that point i was done with it. i was done hurting myself i was done hurting everyone else. for reasons im unsure of but am greatly thankfull for i was utterly and completely done and over it. after clearing my mind up a little bit i just started tackling the things i needed to get on top of. my exercise my diet my family my friends the ones i love the ones that love me were my priority.

[thediabeteschronicles]

some shit i wrote to a girl

i tired to call you form the hospital but you didnt answer and i really didnt think i should leave a message cuz like i didnt know what you would think or if you would even care or if you would beleive me if i said it wasnt from drinking. you know... im really never gonna drink again,mostly because the last time i went to the hospital was so serious that this time that i went was still related to that last time. that last time they told me i was gonna die the doctors were screaming at me about my drinking and he handed me a fill in yourself will, all i had to do was fill in the blanks for my funeral arrangements stuff like what song i want played who gets my stuff. that last time i went i came out with a very real sense of consequences. ive been so selfish in our little time together youve come to mean alot to me and i care about you so much and ive done quite a bit to show you the exact opposite. i hope you dont feel like i dont care about you because of my actions i know ive hurt you time and time again and youve been nothing but understanding of me. i have alot of my own issues eating away at me and as youve seen i was just doing everything i could to avoid dealing with them all. hanging out with you kind of takes me away from all that, talking with you and stuff thats why i get a little to eager sometimes cuz i get all excited and my selfishness kicks in and im all about me and my feelings and what i want and fuck everything else. i used to think my drinking was a personal problem and that it shouldnt involve anyone else and that everyone should just let me do what i want, but im hurting everybody, and my realtionships with people are becoming more and more distant because they cant trust me not to hurt them directly or indirectly. it sucks to realize this at the moment. i wish to do better with myself its like do i realize this because im a little bit better or am i better because i realize this now. it kinda feels like we havent really talked much since the last time i was in the hospital when you came to see me, i was like excited to see you and hang out with you again and it never really happened, i was just kinda stuck ans instead of considering your feelings and asking you how you were doing with it i kinda just assumed everything was fine and that you wouldnt mind- again because im just a selfish prick sometimes. im a man of many sorries wich sucks cuz if i flood the market with my sorry stocks the become less and less worth anything but im sorry for how ive behaved lately, im sorry if you invested some emotions in me and i turned around and just hurt you because of it. you know, when you were telling me you didnt send me a lake invite i kinda got a little sad during the whole conversation i had to fight off a tear or two cuz at that point we hadnt talked for a while and it felt like that was your way of telling me to just not talk to you anymore, and i got hurt and i got frustrated and mad at myself and i thought wow this is what you must feel on some level hurt, frustrated, and mad with me and youre only trying to protect yourself. i dont want to hurt you anymore (names removed to protect the innocent). i dont want to hurt anyone i dont want to hurt myself anymore i want to do everything i can to fix things between us. its weird to have restrictions on when we can hang out, i dont have the slightest desire to drink anymore and its not a question of temtation anymore because its not even an option for me. let me make it up to you somehow just give me a chance to show you, i always have an awesome time when im with you and i want it to stay that way so this is like the jist of what i wanted to tell you...but id like to see you in person too, maybe over some chips and salsa and we can chat about stuff and things, if this hasent weirded you out even more

(PS in case youre wondering the situation with the lady has since derailed)

[thediabeteschronicles]

Dear Diary...

I dont even know where to start, so i'll start at the beggining. My last entry here was almost 3 years ago now... it was about my little brother whom was about to go to prison for a very long time. Well, i went just a little off the rails since i last typed on here. I basically started drinking heavily to the point where i started losing my health, my friends, and my fucking mind... in that order. I come back here and see a few posts and alot of good intentions and unfortunately a very familiar pattern of giving up. Alot has happened in the last three years... a few good things but alot of very bad things. it started with a galbladder and pancreas infection at the same time, that is to say... i had both of those at the same time, due to the alcohol i was drinking wich at the peak was probably a fifth or more of vodka nightly or semi nightly and if it wasnt vodka it was whatever i could get. this took its toll and i had to have surgery and i kept drinking after that. these infections are extremely painfull and life threatening and still i chose to keep drinking. eventually my friends slowly all started to really find out how bad i was doing and how bad i was treating myself. the drinking had made me more of a social person than i ever was i met tons of people and hung out with tons of people that i probably would have never met or hung out with. it was fun to me and i guess i related the alcohol to some good times i had and really went overboard trying to chase something that looking back on now was probably never real.in my high moments of self flattery i can convince myself that im actually pretty cool sometimes and people probably genuinely liked me at first, but as time went on and my situation got worse and i wouldnt stop drinking my behavior became very belligerent and i was blacking out often and hearing alot of stories that made me very nervous but people kept hanging out with me and i really didnt see a need to change since everyone kept telling me it was ok, not that that gives me an excuse but it made it easier for me to just ignore it.eventually i did something very very bad.something so bad that i thought i would never do ever in my life even while blacked out... and i was way blacked out... but when i heard what i did i cried, and i just wanted to go back in time and make the whole situation go away. i consider myself very very very lucky that what has happened happened the way that it did and i think maybe people in my situation have ended up alot worse than what ended up happening to me. eventually all the drinking was just normal and i started to drive drunk, at first not as drunk and eventually hammered if i thought i was fine. well thankfully i got a DUI and got wrapped up in all that mess but the way i see it, it could have been way worse, i was 3 points under 3 times the legal limit (0.19 BAC) but as you might imagine that wasnt enough to keep me from drinking. by this time most people knew how bad my health was and some people asked me to not drink anymore with them and others just avoided me and others told me straight up if i didnt get my shit toghether to lose their numbers (you know who you are! lol j/k i dont blame them).okay so there went the health and the friends and now my mind. thats actually still a little scrambled from everything its happening as we speak and im here to try to alliviate some of my crazy. i had a total of about six major hospital stays all from drinking and everytime i got out i was singin the same ol' song, oh im done i quit thats it i almost died yada yada yada. i cant imagine what people felt as they saw me deteriorate in front of them.people can only take so much shit before they give up and i think a few people gave up. its so hard at this point ive had 5 months without a drop to drink and i see no end in sight to that, but i cried and cried wolf and this is what i get. im not surprised no one beleives me i fully understand them from an intellectual point of view but im still me inside i still feel the pain of what it means to have everyone kinda look at me with doubts and suspicions,theyre not wrong i have a long way to go but i feel like ive made some progress but i guess for now me knowing that is gonna have to be enough.untill i spend and equal or greater amount of time being good and not crazy as i did being horrible and crazy i'll be able to win a few people back. so here i vent, i can let it all out and maybe it gets read maybe it doesent but as i feel like i lose my mind i can write some of it down and maybe i can find it again... here in my dear dear diary.

[thediabeteschronicles]

I don't know

Over the weekend I found out that my little brother had been arrested for a shooting that happened. The person is still alive so at least there's that. I don't even know were to begin for this one. I feel so bad for what is to come. The sadness is overwhelming. Were did it all go so wrong. I've talked about some of what my problems are and those include a deep feeling that I am somehow inferior, not as good as, or less deserving than everyone else. I hate to admit that my relationship to my younger siblings has been distant to say the least. I can't help but feel so guilty about not being there for him to protect him to tell him it didn't have to be this way. I can only imagine what he must be going through. He's been in and out of juvenile hall and some camp out in Calaveras County for the past few years. When you really look at what low self esteem means and what aspects of life are effected its probably easier to look at what it doesn't effect. As long as I can remember I've always thought I was the worst person in the whole world that something was wrong with me, and that extreme translated into a distance from my brother and sister for most of their lives. I never felt like I was good enough to be a role model for them, I always thought of myself as bad and thought that I would pass that along to my siblings if I became close to them. Growing  up I learned to be afraid of everything from things I should be afraid to things no one should be afraid of, I was literally making irrational thoughts up in anticipation of experiencing the worst of things because that's what I thought I had coming. As I try to come to terms with what its like to have lived this way for so long, I realize just how much of my own negativity led to more negativity but its all I knew. I'm left with a ton of guilt that I have to work through and with my mind telling me its just what I have coming to me in life its a little daunting. What's done is done and I can't go back in time to right the wrongs that have let all this come about. I'm convinced that this in some way is my brothers struggle as well, a struggle were all you know is struggle. A life of uncertainty about ones self and ones place in the world. In the end we all have our struggles and if my own brother looked at me in the face and asks me to give him the answer I'd have to look right back at him and say, "I don't know."

[thediabeteschronicles]

The Challenge

So its been about three weeks since I started a new way of trying to deal with my issues and the fact is its a slow and bumpy start. I started to write down what I eat and my blood sugar levels and it kept me thinking about what I was doing. Unfortunately I only kept that up for a week before I "misplaced" my little notebook and I found that I wasn't really to concerned with finding it right away or starting a new one to keep track of what I want to keep track of. The fact is I was a bit relieved to have lost it and until recently I found it again and started writing in it again. I think that says allot about were I'm at with all of this... I couldn't even write stuff down. At first I wasn't even gonna try and change anything in particular I just wanted it as a record of what I was doing and after a while use it to try to change my diet were I could. The thought that I couldn't even keep track made me think that I was falling back into the olde habit of "do nothing its not worth it".  I  must keep moving forward I cant let my own negativity dictate my life anymore. I told myself I would do this as a way to vent and keep track of were I'm going and were I've been because I don't want to lose sight of that. As a general rule I'm going to post here weekly every Monday. Even though I screwed up what I started it has helped me realize that it is a step forward and I need to keep going. So as of yet I guess this is helping me, its helping me keep in mind what I do, its helping me think about what I would like to be writing about, I want to write about good things that are going on, I want to keep track of a healthy diet and healthy blood sugar levels, its helping me re shape and re mold my way of thinking about myself. It helped me say hey your only obligation is keeping track and if you cant even do that what hope is there of any real change.

[thediabeteschronicles]

The Genesis

I've decided to start this blog in an effort to help me get through what I know will be a hard but long overdue journey. I am now 25 years old and was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes when I was 16. At the time I wasn't able to fully grasp exactly what that meant and after intense education it still wasn't enough to get through to me enough for me to want to make a real change in my situation. It's taken a long time for me just to be able to admit that I have been a very unhappy person for a very long time and that I have neglected to do for myself what I need to be healthy. My issues and the specifics behind all of this will be the topic of blogs to come but in a nutshell I've always had a debilitating negative self image and have long turned to food to alleviate the negative feelings that came from that.

What I hope to gain from this blog is a place for me to really deal with my issues by writing them down in a place were other people can see them. On my facebook page I'm going a step further and will actually log my diet, blood sugar levels, and exercise. I feel like there will be some level of accountability to myself by making that info public because in the past its been my deep dark secret and now I will expose it to the light of day. I need to own what I do day by day for myself and keeping it to myself has led me to sweep it under the rug when I felt things were getting too hard. As the days go by I will write about what issues I might be having that day or about deeper issues that have been going on in my life that I feel are relevant to my diabetes and the behavior that I need to change.