Living with diabetes

Well, I've done it! I've started a blog about living with this horrible disease! I just feel like I need a place to write down all my thoughts, especially the things I forget because I do tend to block all the bad stuff from my thoughts. I suppose that is a survival technique...it just happens to be one I'm a pro at.

My husband is a diabetic. And it is out of control. Yesterday, I met with a diabetic nutritionist. She honestly thought I was there to talk about my diabetes! Surprise! No...I went to ask for help in dealing with his. I did like this gal. She was bright, energetic, fun....what I would like to be. But we have a journey to get there, that's for sure!

DH has had type 2 diabetis for at least 25 years. It was always "controlled" with pills. However, his doctor told him that he could eat whatever he wanted as long as he took his pills. Then his company forced him to switch insurance companies. The new health care plan forced him to undergo a battery of tests and told him his kidney function was down to 40% and that he had to start with insulin shots.

Well...that's the first problem. Why didn't anyone tell him his kidney function was at 90%, or 80% or 50%? Or did they tell him and he just never bothered to share that information with me?

We have been through denial....and progressed to anger which is where he is stuck. I know that I cannot change him. I cannot help him move forward. I have gutted the house of any "bad" food. I refuse to buy anything other than what he should eat. I refuse to be his enabler. So, of course, he is always angry that there is "nothing to eat" around here. He travels almost every week and eats out every meal...4 or 5 days a week. I cannot control what he does on the road. I know that. But when he comes home, weekends are pure hell around here. He is mad at me, mad at the dogs, mad at the pavement in the driveway...just angry at the entire world.

He will sit in front of his TV the entire weekend. The only time he moves is to find something to eat (ok, a Snicker's bar!) and because it's not here...he gets mad.

Last weekend, we had a 6 hour discussion. Tears everywhere. The only good that came from it was my statement to him that I did not want to hear another angry word out of him. To which he replied, "ok, then I will only speak to you in a monotone voice". I nearly laughed outloud at his 10 year old childish comments...but I took him to task and the very next time he was angry, I looked right at him and said, "quite the lovely monotone in your voice there" and he backed off immediately.

The diabetes counselor suggested that I try to get him in for joint counseling. He is gone til Friday night and my plans are to ask him to join me and I'll call for an appointment.

I know that his sugar levels are out of whack. He says he needs a snickers bar at 8:30 am because his sugar is "low". At noon he wants another one. If I remind him of the one he had in the morning, he denies that he had one. If I show him the empty wrapper, he says that I ate it. So I know that he does not remember what he does/says when his sugar is low. And when his sugar is high, he is just plain pissed off at the world!

The more highs and lows that he goes through in a day, the more anger I see. And the more exhausted and tired he is...to the extent that he will let the dogs pee in the house rather than get up and let them outside when I am not here. I just spent 5 hours shampooing carpets last weekend....you can imagine my anger! LOL!

I think writing is good. It will allow me to vent my frustration, knowing that no one out there needs to read any of this. And it's a place for me to re-read my thoughts and my notes.

Maybe one day soon there will be a cure for this disease. Oh dear...is that MY denial??? :o)