I’m literally trying to save my life here.
I’ve been struggling with my diabetes for over a year, ever since my wife lost her job during the first pandemic lockdown, forcing major changes to my working habits.
That was exacerbated by a switch to Kaiser this year, forcing a change in one of the key medications that I’ve been on almost since my diagnosis seven long years ago.
Let’s just say that has not gone well.
The last two weeks have been the worst, however. I’ve struggled to get my blood sugar below 200 mg/dL — twice the normal level — while dealing with spikes as high as 250.
Any higher, and I’d be writing this from the emergency room.
As it is, I’ve been passing out from blood sugar spikes after nearly every meal, as the normal spikes after eating are compounded by a much higher baseline.
Which is what happened Monday night, when I passed out after dinner, and couldn’t wake enough to clear my head for over 16 hours.
As a result, I’ve made the difficult decision to put this site on hold for a few days, and take the rest of the week off to try and do something about my health.
It was not an easy choice to make.
I’ve always felt an obligation to post something here every day. Especially during the pandemic, on the assumption that you needed a few minutes of distraction as much as I did. Even if the news wasn’t what we all wanted to read sometimes.
In all honesty, though, it hasn’t been easy.
I’ve often found myself struggling to write after — or during — a blood sugar spike or crash, both of which can knock me on my ass for hours.
That’s on top of a change in my working hours with my wife home, when the work I used to do on this site during the day, while she was at work, shifted to the late night hours after she went to bed.
Which also shifted to later, since she didn’t have to get up in the morning.
That meant putting these pages, and myself, to bed after 4 am most mornings.
Add a puppy to that mix, and the extra time needed to care for it, and I’ve found myself getting to bed while the sun is rising lately.
The result has been a steady drop in my sleeping hours, accompanied by a steady increase in my A1C — rising from a pre-pandemic 6.1, to this year’s 8.3.
Or to put it another way, from a healthy non-diabetic level, controlled with medication, to uncontrolled diabetes.
So my plan is to take the next few days off, and get as much sleep as I can — or my wife and dog will allow, anyway — in hopes of lowering my blood sugar levels.
If not, I’ll be forced to make some hard decisions I really don’t want to make. Including the possibility, if not likelihood, of going on daily insulin shots.
Never mind the damage I’m doing to my body.
Either way, I’ll be back on Monday to make a fresh start. I hope to see you back here then, although I understand completely if anyone has had enough of our semi-regular schedule over the past 17 months.
Lord knows I have.
And I’ll be here if there’s any breaking news in the meantime.
But if you really want to help, keep your fingers crossed that someone, somewhere, gives my wife a job so we can both get our lives back.
