Day 23 of traveling with Diabetes.

There have been great days, good days, bad days and horribly awful days.  Just the same as when we are at home.  But I am living in a 17' travel trailer and all the utter nastiness of diabetes is in my face 24/7.  Thankfully, I can go outside a lot as we are in southern Arizona and the weather has been amazing!

We extended our time here by 10 days.  I am having so much fun visiting with my sister and exploring the area.  My brother-in-law comes by every day to have a chat with hubby.  They have their RV about a mile from the "resort" we are staying in.

I suppose we are not really on the road as we set up and have stayed put the entire time.  Hubby is running low on insulin as we hadn't planned to stay quite this long, so we will be heading back home this weekend.

Yesterday, I saw that he had his nitroglycerin bottle out.  I asked if he had been taking them.  He said "no".  I said, "when is the last time you had one?"  He said, "a week ago".  Sigh!  Well no, not really "sigh".  I have done enough research to know that his high sugar level means that the nerve endings in his heart have to be impacted.  It's also been 9 years since he had his triple bypass surgery and back then the surgeon said that he couldn't find enough good blood vessels to do the 5 bypasses he had wanted to do.

So the reality of it is that he is at a high risk to have a heart attack.  And I am well aware of that.

The second issue was a conversation we had late last night.  We had been out to dinner with my sis and brother-in-law and as we were driving home, he said that he hoped I didn't mind doing all the driving.  Jokingly, I said, "what?  and have a blind man drive me around???"  LOL!  To which he replied that he was grateful I was willing to do all the driving and he realized that he was going blind and that it probably wouldn't be long before he couldn't see a thing.

And yes, I have known for some time that he is slowly going blind.  It must just be horrible being the diabetic that he is.  I would be lashing out in anger 24/7 at the things that were happening to my body.  Yet at the same time, he has done absolutely nothing to prevent any of this.  And he has to have known this was his future.

Some days I worry about what will happen when he goes completely blind.  I already know that he is not going to go to school for the blind or even try to manage his way around.  I pretty much imagine he will simply give up.  Yet I will have to keep going.  Other women have cared for blind spouses - it will just be something we adjust and adapt to.

I tell myself that this new adventure will either kill him, or make him stronger.  Ha!  There have been moments when I think it will kill me!  But overall....it has been an adventure.  We have laughed at ourselves quite a bit.  Dumping the sewer is not something I want to do.  But if he can't see......and trust me, there are plenty of jokes to follow that line!

This is our first time in a travel trailer.  We are learning so much.  Brought the wrong things, too much and then not enough of other items.  He had a complete utter melt down one day in front of the people parked next to us.  I was mortified.  But I held my head high and just kept on going.  What else can you do?  He threatened once to take the truck and leave me here.  I just ignored his comment figuring once again that his sugars were out of whack!  But in my head I was thinking I'd just have my brother-in-law tow me home.

Personally, I love being outdoors.  This has been so refreshing.  There is something about the cool morning air that gets my blood flowing.  And the temps here have been perfect.  Upper 70s in the day, upper 50s at night.  We are surrounded by hundreds of Canadians who no longer feel safe going into Mexico for the winter.  Yet they can be here and cross the border any time to get cheaper meds and services.  Yep, I forgot my passport!  LOL!

It is nice on one hand to have such a complete, total break from our every day life and in ways I'm dreading going back next week.  On the other hand, adjusting to live in a travel trailer with "him" has been a challenge.  I think it's been worth it and I hope we can do this again sometime soon.  If nothing else, I am making sure that I can handle driving, towing, winterizing, dewinterizing....everything that one has to do to have a getaway vehicle.   And this summer I plan to join my sis and her hubby on their weekend camping adventures.  It will give me some much needed mini retreats to look forward to.

DW