The Great Journey

 A1c is...everything when it comes to determining how managed a person's diabetes is. It's a measurement of the average amount of blood glucose (sugar in your blood) over a 90-day period. Anything from about 2.0 to 5.6 or 5.7 (depending on who you ask) is "normal."  When I was originally diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic about seven years ago, my inaugural A1c was 11. When I was admitted to the hospital on December 12 for acute cellulitis in my left foot, it was 9.  Over the last 100 days or so I've been working hard to get that number down. My daily fasting sugars were very good. A personal best of 81 on Christmas Day, they'd be in the 90s and low 100s most days. A few days would creep over the 110 mark, and I'd review what I'd eaten the day before to make changes to my diet. I added exercise six days a week. Sure, I missed a day here or there, and on some of the days I didn't give what the coaches like to call "the ultimate devotion," but ...

 When I was admitted to the hospital in mid-December to deal with the cellulitis in my left foot, they took a spot blood sugar test. It was almost 350. The normal fasting range is about 80-120 depending, and after eating a meal your max should be about 180.  One of my big problems is that chronically high blood sugar inhibits the body's ability to heal from wounds. The distal extremities (hands and feet) suffer the most. And there I was, sky-high blood sugar (very high, but on the ambulance I saw grossly obese patients with 600+ blood sugars) with a foot wound that was threatening to go septic. Sepsis is a blood infection if you don't know, and can easily lead to multi-system organ failure and shortly after that, death.  So the docs had to get my blood sugar down quickly. This means insulin. Upon discharge, my sugars were still 190-200+ and so they prescribed five insulin injections a day. A long-term injection in the morning, a short-term injection before every meal, and...

 One of my life's biggest ironies is that with weights varying from 350 to 400lbs since 2012, during all that time I have been the IT Director for a chain of health clubs. It's a mostly remote job, but every once in a while I do have to show up to put hands on some misbehaving piece of tech. I can go months without seeing anyone from that company, doing the majority of my work via email and a remote control program called TeamViewer.  Last week I had to go to one of the locations about 20 miles away from where I live. I hadn't been there since before I went to the hospital in mid-December, about 30 pounds ago.  I had to meet with the General Manager and the Fitness Director. The Fitness Director hadn't seen me face to face in a little under a year, I think. She turned the corner and saw me standing next to and talking with the General Manager and she did that thing people do when they look you over head to toe. Her eyebrows went way, way up and she smiled and said the m...