First video blog and a post-Diabetes Educator update

OK, I look terrible in this video and I get a little emotional, but this is the first of many to come because I promised my Diabetes Educator that I'd do more journaling about how I'm feeling rather than eating through things.

You might think that things didn't go well at my appointment given the state of me in the video but that really wasn't the case. There was really only one exchange that got me really emotional and it happened when she asked me what my health goal was. I said that I wanted to avoid diabetic complications and she asked me what I thought of when I heard "diabetic complications" to which I replied that it was amputation of limbs, blindness, and kidney failure that I was thinking of.

"Well, good news," she said, "you don't need to worry about any of those because they are only problems at the end of a lifetime of ignoring your diabetes, which we aren't going to let you do."

Before I could breathe a sigh of relief, she continued.

"What you need to worry about is dying from a stroke or heart attack before your next birthday because, with your blood sugar and triglyceride readings from your last blood work, you're heading for one or both if you don't take your medications religiously, continue your daily exercise routine, and change what and how you eat."

*THUD*

That would be the sound of my heart hitting the pit of my stomach.Crap. Seriously, just crap. I'm 43 and she's telling me I'm going to die from a heart attack or stroke pretty much immediately. Crap.

So I was definitely motivated when she gave me information about various diabetes education classes available to me (I'm signed up for all of them), showed me some tips and tricks for testing my blood sugar, and asked me to commit to one change in my lifestyle before our next meeting. My commitment is to check my blood sugar before and two hours after one meal a day, varying which meal I choose, to see how my body is reacting to various foods. She advised me to look at it scientifically, like a lab experiment, instead of getting emotional and upset about the numbers. So I'm doing just that and we'll see what we see. I even found a cool iPad app to help me keep track of my readings and the food I've consumed at the meal I'm testing around.

I'm not perfect but I'm learning that I don't need to be, either. Make a better choice today based on what you've learned since your last meal and you're doing OK is how I'm looking at it. Progress, not perfection.