Two In A Row! (w/ The Why Of I Part 2)

The Why Of I ... Can't Stand Rocking When I'm In Here, 'Cause Your Crystal Ball Ain't So Crystal Clear (part 2)

While in the hospital, I found out I had a number of related conditions - Type 2 Diabetes (hereafter referred to as T2D), hypertension, and high cholesterol.   My A1C was 8.0, and my bG was probably in the 9 range?  Don't really recall at this point.
I was told my T2D was a chronic, degenerative condition ; I was told about the dietary changes I'd have to make ; I was told about the meds I needed to take.  I was told a lot of stuff and it was rather overwhelming, even for a nerd like me.

I finally understood the nature of the big, fuckin' bear that I had poked.  Or, more accurately, had been poking for a long, fuckin' time, and I had pissed it off enough for it to start a'maulin'.

When I was discharged, I walked out the door armed with prescriptions for a number of meds:

• Metformin - for T2D; its role is to suppress the liver from producing glucose (aka hepatic gluconeogenesis - PubMed link).  It also improves muscular insulin sensitivity (PubMed link).
• Gliclazide (a sulfonylurea) - for T2D; its role is to force the pancreas to produce more insulin.  According to Wikipedia, it was shown to protect pancreatic beta cells from programmed cell death due to an excess of blood sugar in the blood stream.
• Atorvastatin (a statin) - for high cholesterol
• Ramipril (an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor) - for hypertension

Engaging with various health teams both in the hospital and out, I met with a lot of very nice, helpful individuals, who all told me variations of the same story.  This is not intended to be a rant against the *people* - I feel very fortunate to have been in the care of the people whose paths I crossed at my time of need.  However, the stories they told left me with the following messages:

• Fear sugar.  (it'll mess with your blood sugar, duh ...)
• Fear carbohydrates.  (sugar is a carb, so ditto ...)
• Fear fat.  (your cholesterol ...)
• Fear sodium.  (your blood pressure ...)
• Fear calories.  (gotta watch your weight ...)
• Fear your weight.  (gotta lose the poundage, bub ...)
• Fear neuropathy (which I do have)
• Fear retinopathy (which I do not have)
• Fear hyperglycemia (blood sugar too high ...)
• Fear hypoglycemia (blood sugar too low, a risk of the meds ...)
• Fear frequency.  (you should eat at least a little something every few hours to regulate your blood sugar ...)
• Fear portion size.  (if you're counting carbs a portion is 15g and usually it's ok to have 3-5 portions per meal, but as a new diabetic we recommend use the plate model, where 1/2 the plate is veggies, 1/4 the plate is protein, 1/4 the plate is starch, and a portion of veggies is what you can hold in 2 hands and a portion of protein is the open palm of your hand and a portion of carbs is roughly your fist and at this point I feel like I've just been fisted)

In other words, fear eating and fear living and fear just fucking existing.

And as we all know ... Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

All of this came to a head for me sometime in February 2015.
I was grocery shopping in Loblaws, and I had just spent the last 15 minutes or so reading the nutrition labels on a number of bottles of salad dressings, trying to determine which one would be least detrimental, trying to balance sugars, fats, calories, etc.

Having realized I just spent 15 minutes reading fucking nutrition labels, I knew something had to change.
This is not living, this is not-dying.
This is no way to live the rest of my life.
Fuck this.
There has to be a better way.

-tak