Before I begin, I want to warn you that I am NOT going to pander to political correctness. I won't purposefully be hurtful or use vulgarities, but I am not going to mince words. When you're talking about life and death, there's no room for dancing around.
I've been overweight my entire life, except for a few years in my early- to late-teens. I can't ever remember a childhood day where I was just a normal kid. "Fatso," "flabby," and "tubby" were common childhood taunts thrown at me by skinny kids whose own self-worth was so fragile that they had to dis someone else to gain peer acceptance. I was even teased by my adult teachers! My elementary school's population were primarily black, and the time was the racially-charged mid-1960's. I was the only fat white boy in my homeroom class. There was also a fat black boy (a nice kid, as I recall), and the teacher referred to us as the "Pillsbury Dough Boys." I was "vanilla," and the other boy was "chocolate." (I am not making this up. In today's classrooms this teacher would be reprimanded at the very least, if not fired outright.) Mom tried imposing diets on me, but that wasn't easy as were were fairly poor and our diet consisted mostly of bologna sandwiches and frozen pot pies. She spent a considerable amount of money on a diet drink for me that was called "Metrical." It was something like SlimFast. It was finally taken off the market in 1969 due to a cancer-causing sweetening ingredient known as cyclamate. The drink never helped me. Shopping for school clothes was always frustrating, and I ended up in dowdy-looking outfits from special shops that were made for the "portly" young man.
I was heavy until the ninth grade. I don't know why I lost weight--perhaps riding a bike everywhere helped. When I got my driver's license at 16 I still managed to keep my weight down until after high school graduation. Within a year my weight ballooned and I've remained fat ever since. I've tried everything over the years--caloric restriction, fad diets, salad-only diets, liquid diets, fasting-- but lost weight was always regained.
About 1991 I was diagnosed with type 2 (adult onset) diabetes and placed on a regimen of oral medications. Unfortunately I didn't take the diagnosis seriously for a few years. I lived in denial, taking the meds but not checking my blood sugars regularly. In the meantime my body was slowly succumbing to disease-induced damage. By the time I started taking things seriously I'd incurred some eye damage and began losing feeling in my feet (peripheral neuropathy). My doctor began screening for microalbumen, or protein, in my urine. Finding protein in your urine means some kidney damage is occurring.
During that time in my life, I had two diabetic friends. Larry was a type 1 diabetic (childhood onset), and Bill was type 2. Larry had been through kidney failure and nearly died after several years on dialysis treatments, before getting a kidney transplant. Bill had just developed kidney failure. I began taking the disease seriously after seeing what they went through. As of today both friends have died due to diabetes-related complications. Bill was three years older than I; Larry merely five days younger.
In 2001 my body began showing signs of strain from the disease. During an eye exam one of my two doctors (each a specialist in an area of diabetes-related eye disease) asked how my kidneys were doing. I thought the question strange. He explained that the blood vessels in the eyes and kidneys were somewhat alike. He could see signs of damage to them, which meant that my kidneys were also being damaged. I told him my physician had placed me on a drug to help protect my kidneys.
Not long afterward I developed the first blood leak in my left eye. My sight became a little blurry, and a dark spiderweb of blood would float into and out of my field of vision. I got a laser treatment, which blasted and sealed multiple vessels that had seeped blood into the vitreous fluid of the eye. This was done from the outside of the eye with my pupils dilated while I sat awake in an exam chair. (That first surgery wasn't too bad. In later surgeries, my eye muscles had to be numbed to keep the eye perfectly still. He had me look up at the ceiling while he stuck a needle through my cheek into my eye socket, where he injected the numbing agent.) Within a year this procedure was repeated with my right eye, then the left again, then the right. Finally my left eye's vision was mostly obscured by a leak that developed outside the area that the doctor could reach without getting inside the eye. In 2005 I had a vitrectomy in my left eye. It's a little too involved to explain here, but a Google lookup will shed light on the procedure. It was not a simple surgery, but it completely stopped the development of further leaks. As of today I'm facing the same surgery in my right eye.
In 2006, an all-day walk around a trade show floor resulted in the loss of half the outer skin on one of my big toes. I never felt the blister developing, or the skin coming off with my sock. The emergency room doctor looked at my toe and said, "That must really hurt."
"No, actually, I don't have much feeling in my feet."
She smiled. "Ah, neuropathy. Well, it's a good thing, because that would really hurt."
This year I spent nearly six months in a special walking boot thanks to the collapse of an arch joint in my right foot. This is known as "Charcot foot," and is usually experienced by diabetics with neuropathy. I was out walking the dog when I stepped forward with my right foot, then felt and heard a >snap! < I didn't feel any pain, but noticed that my arch wasn't as high and that I could feel a couple of lumps in the arch area. My podiatrist tells me I caught it early, and thanks to keeping it immobile in a special boot with a specially-made insert while it healed, that I've come through the experience "relatively unscathed." I've looked at a medical book called "Atlas of the Diabetic Foot," and I know what he means. Some people with this condition who didn't catch it early ended up having their foot and/or part of their leg amputated. As it is I now have a special shoe insert that makes walking easier, though still a bit painful. I'm told that the insert can be remade now that healing's nearly complete, and that he can operate to shave off some of the bone I'm now walking on. I'll just have to use crutches for six weeks. At least I still have a foot to walk on!
Original source: http://flabotomy.wordpress.com/?p=8
