… I have no idea what to call this one, so I went with that.
As recent days have lingered on, I have tried to push away the dark cloud that has possessed my life lately (See last post). I’ve have searched the web for humor, looked for humor in situations in day to day life and tried to avoid anything that would pop my overpressurized cork.
My trip to the doc the other day didn’t go as bad as I thought it might. Sugar wasn’t quite as high as I thought it might be but it was too high non–the-less. I wasn’t surprised to hear that my kidneys are somewhat damaged. Over the last year, I’ve seen changes in my body more than likely related to my sugar levels. My sugar levels were way high last Christmas (over 400 for a rather long period of time). Some of it I attribute to the number of sweets and amount of food folks brought Dad and I. I think I had 4 plates of cookies brought to me. I lost count of all the stuff we received. I really appreciate all the things people did for us. Christmas last year was much harder for me than the first Christmas after Mom’s death. I’m not looking forward to this year either.
I’m not blaming my high sugar on anyone but myself. I chose to eat all those good things. When I started to notice vision changes, I began to realize what was going on and started to give things away. I felt I had to get my sugar back under control to get my life back under control. It hasn’t been easy. I gained back alot of the almost 80 pounds of weight I’d lost. Depression never really subsided. I think I just covered it up… buried it as it were. The doctor’s appointment this week brought a few realizations that I think I had also buried. I am my father’s son. I have all the health ailments he has. In time, my kidneys will probably go amiss. I need to do things to try to elongate the time in which that kind of damage takes place. The only way to do that is to get my weight down which will also bring my sugar down as well.
One of the things I can do to lower my sugar faster is exercise. It doesn’t have to be 26 hours, 8 days a week, just more than sedimentary. My back, however, seems to have other ideas. I have been having consistant and higher than normal levels of pain in my lower back. I go walking for even a few minutes and end up with throbbing pain that radiates down my legs the more tired and sore my back gets. I walked around Lowe’s with Dad yesterday. I think we were there a half an hour. I came home and layed down. My back and left leg (normally my good leg) throbbing with pain. I didn’t even get the bike out today because I was hurting. It ended up being good that I didn’t because it rained for a bit.
Speaking of the trip to Lowe’s… I didn’t go there with Dad. I just happened to go there at the same time. On weekends, we tend to do our own things. For those who know Dad, he has a knack for finding ‘deals’, whether its at garage sales or stores. Sometimes these deals are really great and very useful. Most of the time, however, he buys things he doesn’t really need. This drove Mom nuts but she didn’t say much, at least not in front of anyone. I guess it was better than him going out drinking or something else. Had I not been with him, I might have ended up with a deep freeze. He sees things on sale and buys them whether they are needed or not. They had a deep freeze with a ding in the lower right corner that was on sale. He had his eyes fixed on it. It took a bit to get him to realize he didn’t really need it… neither do I. There are so many things at his house that he really doesn’t need. I wish I could count them all. He vowed he would never leave me with the mess that his dad left the family. Ummmm…. Its a better quality of mess, but its a mess none the less. I hope as the year progresses that I can get a hold on my own health. Dad will get himself pulled together. All will be well with the world as we know it.
I had a dinner invitation week before last with a lady that is really special in my life. I had hoped that one day she and her daughter would be part of my world. It didn’t work out that way. We became friends and she went on to meet and marry someone else. I don’t know why I agreed to meet her husband and have dinner with them. Its a very uncomfortable thought to me. I feel like I will be a third wheel or cause problems between her and her husband. She says she has told him all about me and he wants to meet me. I don’t know if I should or not. She had to cancel dinner on the original date. I was kind of relieved. I need someone in my life right now to keep me grounded and going in the right direction. She says any time I need to talk I should call her. I don’t want to become that stumbling block in her marriage because she is trying to help me out of my own deep hole. I cherrish our friendship and don’t to hurt her by saying no. I have to figure this out along with all the other junk in my life. Sooner than later I hope.
There is something that I wish I could do this year instead of celebrating Christmas. I can’t afford to make it happen, but if I could find a way it would. Christmas was Mom’s time. There was one time that was even more special than all the other ‘special’ things that made her cry at Christmas… That was the year we spent Christmas week in Florida with Grandma and Grandpa. We went to Disney World. Disney is a special place any time, but at Christmas… I haven’t seen anything that can beat it. Mom cried almost from the moment we hit Mainstreet. I would love to be able to take off and drive down to Disney with Dad. I doubt he would go. I asked him when I went last year and he declined because he didn’t want to tie me down. One day… I will get back there over the Christmas season. I’d love to do it before my back won’t let me and my before my faith is so far gone that even the brightest lights of the holidays can’t penetrate my dark heart.
Until then… I will take one step at a time. Cross each obstacle as it comes. One day, hopefully, I will be able to feel the light inside I used to feel.