While the pain in my body has been ministered to by the physicians, the pain in my soul has been ministered to by you.

Sometimes, it is easier to understand where a person is coming from in order to understand them now. So, here's a background "blog?" on me.

I am T2 diagnosed in my 30s. First came the oral meds to which I reacted badly to the most common. A few years later (can't remember when) I was on vacation and experiencing BGs in the 500s. That's when the "needle" came. Ups and downs, denial, acceptance, action; denials again (or was it boredom and depression). Went on the pump the first time in 2002 (?) and had better numbers. On Thanksgiving 2003 I was back off my pump and really "blowing it" with eating, meds, etc. I ate like a piggy! The day after (forever burned in my memory as 11/28/03) I woke up extremely thirsty. I tried to get up but couldn't walk. I had to call the apartment manager and he helped me out of bed and to the bathroom. From there to the living room where I decided that walking like a drunken sailor was NOT normal and called the paramedics. I had to CRAWL to the door to let them in because the manager had locked it again!

Alone in a back room in the ER for hours, my legs swelled to 3-4 times their normal size and turned bright purple. Turns out that I had DVTs behind each knee. The result of sitting there unsupervised is muscles and nerves were killed off. I often wonder that if they had started treatment sooner, would I be able to walk?

I spent 36 days in the hospital. Three weeks of that was in the Burn Intensive Care Unit because the lack of circulation in the legs (lymph nodes killed too) caused the body to push the body fluids to the surface in the form of humongous blisters. They had to be debrided once per shift. I had to learn how to walk all over again. It felt (and still does feel) like I was walking on huge bags of marshmallows. No balance left. Now I am very unstable on my feet. I have spotty feeling from the knees to the ankles and none in the feet ... except for the pain of neuropathy. I fall down A LOT. You could change my name to "Fall Down and Go Boom!" I know the area paramedics and firemen because they are here at least once a month with a fall or a diabetic low. Because of other physical problems adding to the mess, I am now using a scooter to get around outside and a walker at all times in the apartment.

There are times that I sit and think that none of this is real. That I didn't ignore and abuse my body to the point of this amount of destruction!! I hate my life most of the time. I am homebound most of the time in winter because of the lack of proper snow removal in Milwaukee. I'd go crazy if I weren't already halfway there!! :-) HA HA

Please, dear friends, DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU! You CAN prevent some of the complications by sticking to a proper diet, meds, DR visits and exercise. Unfortunately, because of all the physical problems I have, there is no real "aerobic" exercise I can get into to jump start any weight loss. But YOU CAN help yourself. I pray to God that someone can take this experience to heart and change their attitudes and way of life. If I can touch someone's life with my story, then my life is worth something after all.