Today was a hectic day, full of health challenges and changes regarding my foot, my sleeping, my diabetes, and my weight.

It is a lot to take on at once, but it couldn’t be helped, and it is an exciting challenge for me.

The good thing about this period is that all of these are things I can deal with, and they all are treatable and will make me healthier. I lost three friends in the past month to illnesses that were not treatable and could not be made better.

I am one of the lucky ones, and I will never forget that. I kiss my gratitude necklace every morning for Maria, for my doctors and nurses. I do not deserve such caring people, but I am grateful for them.

Our troubles began at 2 a.m. when I got out of bed and felt a shooting pain up my leg. My bandage had come off in the night while I was in bed (the same thing happened the night before), and my wound was unprotected when my foot hit the floor.

I woke Maria up, and she ran downstairs and put an elaborate new bandage on.

Four hours later, this one came off also. This was dangerous news. If the stitches were to break or my wound got infected, that would be an unholy mess for many reasons.

Maria and I agreed that we should get into Saratoga and have a new dressing put on, one that would hold up until next Thursday when the stitches are scheduled to come out.

I called at 8 a.m., and they told me to come in at ll a.m. When we showed up, the place was empty; Dr. Daly is off on Fridays. One of her techs – his name is Devin – took charge and wrapped a tight blue bandage up over my ankle. “This one,” he said, “is not coming off.” The foot, he said, looks fine.

 

The mail came right after we got home, and I got the new sleep apnea mask that I asked for.

It was, alas, the Darth Vader model, the larger one that covers both my nose and my mouth. This is a serious mask, but I suspect it was just what I needed to make this system work for me.

I’m already sleeping more and feeling better, but my mouth also wants to breathe, which is throwing things off.

I tried the mask on this afternoon, sat in my chair, and started it up. I expected to read while I tried it out. The next thing I knew, 45 minutes had passed, I’d gone right to sleep. It took about 10 seconds. The mask fits snugly, and my mouth can breathe too.

I’ll give it a more thorough workout tonight. On top of all of this, I’ve undertaken a serious review of diet and exercise as it relates to my weight. A couple of years ago, I went on some new and different and somewhat experimental insulin. My blood sugar numbers were great, but my weight shot up.

Insulin pushes sugar into the blood cells to get them out of the way, and mine did a great job. Not only did I gain weight, but I also couldn’t lose it. Exercise didn’t matter, but diet did, and in the flurry over my foot, I somehow talked myself into thinking I could eat whatever I wanted. My strict diabetic eating protocols largely disappeared over the summer, and I gained even more weight.

The sugar and diabetes made me tired and drowsy. It threatened my heart, a stroke, my energy, and even my breathing. It is central to everything going on in my body today. A few weeks ago, a sympathetic but honest cardiologist reamed me out and laid it all out for me: lose weight, eat properly, or the rest of me was likely to fall apart as I grew older.

I’d never even seen the inside of a hospital until my open heart surgery in 2014, and I rarely went to doctors for most of my life, and a part of me came to think I was above the natural law. I ate what I wanted, and still, my numbers were good. But the rest of me wasn’t.

I was deluding myself and not for the first time. All my life, I ignored the rules and lessons adults and teachers tried to force on me. I rebelled and rebelled and rebelled until I couldn’t even tell what I was fighting against. I guess much of the time, I was fighting against myself.

So I met with my primary care nurse, studied nutrition, talked to some specialists, changed just about every single thing in my diet. Today, I learned that I had lost six pounds in just a few days without realizing it.

I know that the only lasting weight loss is slow; there is no virtue or lasting result in pushing it or counting ounces. But the weight loss showed me just how bad my diet was getting. All I did was stop eating bread and anything with any measurable amount of sugar in it. And all deserts.

I’ve never eaten a lot of Amish baked goods, there is too much sugar in them for me, but I stopped paying attention to sugar carbs and decided that ice cream and white bread were okay for me.  Stuff like that. My breakfasts at Jean’s place were a horror for a person with diabetes – egg n cheese, bacon, sausage sometimes, crispy home fries, sugar-loaded muffins. Every week.

I don’t know what I was thinking; my hand had gone off the rails, as it sometimes. I suppose this is a part of my mental illness; it sure sounds like it. I know better and have controlled my diabetes beautifully for years.

My therapist urges me not to dwell on why but to move forward with my nearly famous stubbornness and will and support a loving partner. So another project was added to the mix: Diabetes, my heart, my foot, my breathing.

Tonight, I try and get easy with my new Darth Vader mask. He’s on my side this time.

I am very much on it, all of it. I love my life very much and wish to keep it. I’ll be continuing this recovery journal and honestly sharing my progress or lack of it. I had a veggie omelet for breakfast with a cup of blueberries. We got our Friday night pizza tonight, and I had three sizes (one too many), plain with some veggies and Canadian bacon betters.

Better, but two slices would have been fine. I usually eat four, so I’m moving in the right direction. I love in the now, not the past, not the future. I have a lot of good hard work to do.

Photos and design of Recovery Journal by Maria Wulf