Fragments from a Writing Desk: 23 November 2000, on Bench up the Slope, with Stra...

Fragments from a Writing Desk: 23 November 2000, on Bench up the Slope, with Stra...: A picture of exhaustion. At 65, this week in 2000, the question was whether (while enduring surgeries and postponing others) I could revise...

Fragments from a Writing Desk: Hershel Parker and Heddy-Ann Richter

Fragments from a Writing Desk: Hershel Parker and Heddy-Ann Richter

It's been a while, and not a great one. . .

DH is in massive denial of his diabetes.  I honestly don't know when he last tested his blood sugar.  He eats like there is no tomorrow.  He has regained all of the weight he lost when first diagnosed (and probably more) and is acting mentally unstable, to boot.

I have had what seems like one health issue after another since about Thanksgiving (heck, I'm in my 60's - I'm entitled  to have aches and pains and issues from time to time, aren't I???) DH keeps hinting - not quite saying outright - that having to "take care of" me is what is putting HIM on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

But he is doing stupid things that cause him problems, and I am not responsible for these things!  For example, when he drives, he gets very paranoid (worse, if he is especially tired or stressed-out) - every other driver on the road is OUT TO GET HIM!!!  If he starts acting belligerent toward another driver (one whom he imagines has "done something" to him but probably isn't even aware of it) I have to hope and pray that the other driver doesn't get belligerent back, because things could escalate in a hurry.

And he is way behind in a lot of stuff at work.  He could bring some of it home and let me help him get it up to date - I have offered - but he won't do that.  I have also suggested that he hang a "Do Not Interrupt" sign on his door at work and get some of the stuff done (he could get away with this) but he won't do that, either.

Because he has suggested that MY health issues are a large part of what is getting him upset, I have to "fake it" and pretend that I'm feeling hunky-dory, even when I'm not.  I'm older than he is - can't help that - he knew it when we got married - and I definitely have my creaky days.  But I don't dare show how creaky I feel because it makes him feel like there's just that much more burden HE has to carry.

I don't really know how to deal with all of this.  I think he has a meeting with his diabetes nurse sometime this month, and she is going to go through the roof (which will REALLY make him fun to live with for the next several days. . .)

Any suggestions would be welcome.

He's Mortal After All - What a Bummer!

After deciding that he wasn't really diabetic and indulging himself to several days of tons of mashed potatoes, pasta, sugary soft drinks, etc, he finally got consecutive blood glucose readings of 138 and 139.  That's high, for him.  So it was back to earth again.  Now he knows he can't just eat whatever he wants, in whatever amount he wants.  But I think he realizes too that with just a few tweaks of his behavior, he can keep this nasty stuff in check, so maybe it wasn't such a bad lesson.

So hubby isn't diabetic any more. . .

He had a one-on-one meeting with a "diabetes educator" and I'm so sorry I missed it.  I had a killer headache and just about any attempt to move would make me throw up, so I couldn't go.

He showed her his record of glucometer readings - all but one within the normal range.  The one that was high wasn't off by much.  And he has NOT been at all faithful with the dieting.  So he asked her, flat out:  "If I haven't been staying on the diet and my blood sugars have remained within the normal range, then how can I be diabetic?"  She replied archly, "Oh, you're diabetic, all right!"  He reworded the question several ways - the numbers all say NORMAL, despite eating anything that didn't bite back - so how does this back up the diagnosis.  She would never come back with a concrete answer, but she continued to insist that he is a diabetic.

It probably was a good thing I wasn't there.  I would have been in her face with the same question.  If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, why do you persist in calling it a kitty-cat???

He takes no medicine, doesn't stay on the diet, and yet continues to have normal blood sugars.  So how, exactly, is the diagnosis of "diabetic" appropriate??

His highest-ever recorded blood sugar level, taken months ago, was 141.  It has never been anywhere near that high since that one time.  He is overweight, but has lost about 1/4 of what he needs to lose.  He is exercising often. Diabetes runs in his family, so I can see that it is a definite possibility.  But the circumstances seem to have changed.  What am I not seeing here???

Do Glucometers Keep Your Whole History?

I mean, stuff like how often you checked your blood levels, what dates, what times,  and not just the readings themselves?  I'm wondering if a diabetes counselor who has the meter-reading gizmo can determine all this, and see for herself/himself when hubby has had periods when he decides not to be diabetic any more and quits playing nice.

If there is such a thing, boy - will there ever be a day of reckoning!  I'm not sure I want to be there when it happens.

But as several people have pointed out, we are not their mothers or their jailers.

So my husband informs me this morning. . .

he has a busy day ahead, no time for breakfast. . .and he may not get around to lunch, which means around three-thirty-to four, the Great All- American Pig-Out commences, and will go on until further notice.

We DID the diabetic thing LAST week, with blood sticks and counting carbs and all that, and now he's tired of it.

Should I call the AMA and tell them that these days, people are only diabetic when they FEEL like being diabetic???

News to me, but hey - I'm still just a rookie.  Can you tell I'm just a wee bit perturbed?

Another question for those with more experience:

Since my DH was issued his glucometer, he has been pretty good about checking his sugars.  One morning, it was at 147, but that is the highest it has been.  The pattern, every day, seems to start out high and then, no matter what he eats, his sugar level just goes downhill.  He had about two and a half normal meals for supper, plus lots of snacks, but 3 hours later, his sugar was around 74.

I'm not yet familiar enough with all of this to know - is this at all a reasonable pattern???

May I borrow a brick wall - for smacking my head on??

DH has been doing pretty well lately - dropping a few pounds, checking his blood sugars (he seems to run on the lowish side) and paying attention to what he eats.

But every once in a while, (like tonight) he will have a planned-for snack (which is fine) and then go berserk and start stuffing his face with everything that isn't nailed down.  And he will give me this look that says,  "Don't even think about saying anything!" What can you do??? He KNOWS he isn't supposed to be eating like that and he doesn't want to hear about it.

Just a few hours ago he was strutting around proudly in a shirt that he couldn't button a couple of months ago and now it fits nicely. . .and then he goes completely off the wall and starts eating like a vacuum cleaner.  I SOOOO don't get it.

Feeling Isolated - When You're with Him

DH and I just got back from seeing the last Harry Potter flick.  I admit it - I am and always have been a rabid Harry Potter fan.  I have every book and most of the DVD's.  I LOVED the final movie and felt high as the proverbial kite after seeing it and could not stop chattering like a squirrel or maybe a delighted school kid.

But my intended audience simply wasn't there. It wasn't like this hasn't happened before.  It has, many times.  But today, somehow, it hurt more.  The first time, I was happily chattering about a particular scene that had delighted me.  He was making listening noises and then exploded with "THAT SOB!!! They shouldn't let people like that on the road!"  So I tried to steer the conversation back to Harry Potter, only to get derailed seconds later by another storm of outrage about some other driver.  After a third try, I just gave up and stayed quiet.  He didn't bring the subject up either, so I realized that he hadn't really even been present to the conversation that I had been so excited about.

That hurts.  Here I thought we were sharing a wonderful  adventure together.  He wasn't even there.  Do I just need to buck up and learn to be a grown up about things like this? Quit talking about things that matter to me? Just pull up the big-girl panties at age 64 and keep stumbling along?

First "low sugar" crisis today - I think.

I had to get an MRI on my shoulder (I've had surgery on it before and think I have re-injured it.  Oh boy.)  Anyway, DH offered to drive me to the MRI facility.  As we were waiting for me to be called, he mentioned that he was hungry.  I told him I thought there was a snack dispensing machine around the corner in the same building.  Then they called me back for the MRI.

The doggone procedure took twice as long as it should have because I needed to take deep breaths, but couldn't, and despite my best efforts, apparently I fidgeted inside that long cylindrical gizmo.

By the time I got back, DH had not, of course, even gone to look for the snack vending machine.  He announced that he was light-headed, felt terrible, and HAD to get something to eat IMMEDIATELY.  I knew where there were several fast-food places if he turned left, off the street from the medical facility, but he insisted on turning right (where I never go, so I had no idea of what might be there.)  So we are passing all these stores - Target, Kohl's, Lowe's - but noplace to get any food.  And he is keeping up this constant bellowing about how he is getting fainter and fainter.  This was not much fun, as he was driving. (I'm afraid I was a little cynical, though.  I figured that if he had enough energy left to bellow like that, he wasn't quite as faint as he was claiming. Am I wrong?)

Finally, we saw a McDonald's and turned in there.  He got his food and seemed to bounce back very quickly after two cheeseburgers, a packet of fries, and a sugar Coke.  (I vowed to myself on the spot that I would keep something non-perishable in the car at all times, like those Nature Valley Granola Bars that don't have a chocolatey coating  and won't turn to slime inside a hot car.)

I don't like to be in the car with him anyway, because invariably, other drivers do things that set him off and make him want to "teach them a lesson."  For 20 years, I have pointed out that this is not a good idea and that they probably would not be receptive students.  Sometimes, he listens - sometimes not.

Is this what a "low sugar" meltdown really looks like?

Tired of being the chew toy. . .so I bit back.

My husband has been "different" ever since he was diagnosed with diabetes, and it hasn't been that long ago.  He hates being reminded that there are limits now on what he can eat - and I don't imagine this is fun for a food addict - and he gets very surly and critical.

I've tried very hard to take small steps rather than large, traumatic ones - toward goals like getting him to eat smaller portions of things, not having three or for forms of carbs with a single meal, switching away from sugary sodas, things like that.  Sometimes he has been cooperative.  Many times, he has been belligerent and quite unpleasant.

After a fairly unpleasant week, I happened to remark last night (and I don't even remember what led up to it, but it was a natural segue), "You know, this marriage has been different from the very beginning.  I have always known that I had the resources to just head out the door and keep on going.  I wouldn't want to, of course, because I love you and you are a very special person.  But I know that I can stand on my own two feet and survive if I have to."

He didn't seem to react at all at that time, so I let it go.  Today, he remarked (after being exceptionally pleasant all day) that I had seemed "snippier" and he wondered why.  I couldn't really remember being "snippy," but I had made a point of spending more time by myself than usual today.

He finally said something about "Maybe I've been cranky lately, and you just decided to get cranky back." I just shrugged and said, "Well, maybe, but I don't like being cranky.  Do you?"  He said that no, he didn't, and the evening ended on a fairly up-beat note.

After reading what so many of you had said about how the moodiness and nastiness just get worse and worse, I thought I would put him on notice that I wasn't going to put up with it.  Maybe the message got through.  We shall see.

"Post-prandial" is now a fightin' word. . .

I was a medical transcriber in a previous lifetime (like 40 years ago) so I have known this word for a long time.

DH only learned of it recently in connection with his diabetes.  Earlier tonight I happened to make a remark about "Post-prandial sleepiness" after a wonderful supper.  DH responded angrily - "Every time you use that word, I feel like you are poking at me for eating too much!!"

EXCUUUUUSE ME???  It's just a fancy medical word that means "after eating."  There is absolutely NO judgement tied into it, either overt or covert.  What the heck?  Does diabetes trip over into Paranoia-land sometimes, too???

Sorry, the diner is closed now.

DH has gotten himself into the habit of wanting a "fourth meal" before he goes off to bed, and he won't settle for a snack.

Tonight, it was well past his normal bedtime and he was getting that glazed-eyed look - not really paying attention to TV, not really into conversation, not reading. . .I thought, "Any second now, he will go off to bed and I can dash to the computer room and play!"  (I know that sounds mean and uncaring, but that's life.)

Then he started in about wanting something to eat.  I offered several of the standard snacks: a handful of grapes, a peach, a handful of almonds, etc.  No dice. He wanted a giganticus PIZZA.  I told him flatly that this was way too much and he wasn't allowed to have something like that.  He already had a balanced dinner.

He bitched and bickered, bitched and bickered, and finally settled on a ham-and-cheese sandwich.  So I made him a sandwich and tried to settle back down on the sofa.  Before I could do so, he asked for "something to drink."  And then it was "Can I have some Cheeze-Its?" And then: "Please, I need a napkin."  And then it was green onions, a dill pickle, and pretzels.  With each request, he seemed to get more frantic; he did NOT want me to sit down!

When I headed for the sofa again, he looked like he was about to cry. I said, "What's the matter?"  He said, "I don't know, I just want - MORE - and if you sit down again, I won't have the heart to ask you to get up again and get it - and I don't even know what I want!"

I tried to stay calm, and said, "Well, I think you've probably had enough now anyway.  I bet if you just let it settle, you'll feel full and that will be enough." I took the now-empty plate and glass away and put them in the kitchen, and sat down and opened my book with an air of finality.

So here I am, stewing at the computer.  He is probably angry at himself for overeating - AGAIN - and I let him do it.

I hope he gets his act together before I have to go on dialysis, because I won't be playing waitress any more.  I have my own dietary rules to follow.  I can't be responsible for his, too.

So hubby had a rotten day at work. . .

I didn't even TRY to get between him and his food.  I'd like to think I am learning a healthy sense of self-preservation.

He was extremely angry about some things that had transpired at work.  At first, he wasn't even going to tell me about it, so I didn't ask; I just made listening noises, allowing him to vent, and eventually got the whole story.  Of course, by then, he had eaten significant amounts of potato salad, sweet cole slaw, pretzels, peanut butter, a glass of sparkling grape juice that we had left over from the 4th, and I forget what else. . .

I feel like I ought to be fighting harder, but it seems like that would just set up more resistance, and as others have pointed out, I am neither his mother nor his keeper. We are in this together and I'm here to help, but I can't do it all by myself.

Lab-stuff question

What does "A1C" mean?  It was on my husband's last lab test report.  Our doctor had his idiot assistant just read DH the lab results over the phone, and she might as well have been speaking Ancient Sumerian or something.  And it doesn't do any good to ask HER anything, because she doesn't know. (I have no idea how she got hired or why she remains employed, but that's another story.)

The only numbers I know anything about are the sugar ones, where if it's over 100 or so you need to pay attention.

What other kinds of numbers should I know about? There is so much we don't know. . .

How do you break the connection. . .

When diabetic spouse believes that if he has a burger, he simply HAS to have french fries with it?  And if he has French fries, he has to have a gallon of catsup with those. I have tried and tried to both tell him and show him that you do NOT have to have those  fries with burgers (I used to get the smallest-possible packet and eat maybe a half-dozen of them, just for the taste and texture, but then he would take any left-over ones that I would have thrown away and add them to his own plate, so I quit ordering them altogether.)

Or another case:  if he has a sandwich - any kind - he believes that he simply MUST have "something crunchy" to go with it.  The favorite "something crunchy" is potato chips.  If they are not available (as they usually aren't, in my house,) he will settle for pretzels, corn chips, even dill pickles.  But he will refuse to eat the sandwich, not matter how hungry he is, until he has rooted through the kitchen, refrigerator and pantry to find "something crunchy," or he can barely get the sandwich down.

It seems to me that this kind of "linking" - i.e, if you have A, then you MUST also have B with it - is something that must have been "conditioned" a long time ago, to be set so firmly and so irrationally. There is no reasoning or arguing him out of it.

Oh - and I also left out my favorite - ANYTHING chocolate - even something as tiny as a single Hershey's kiss or one of those TINY Halloween-sized candy bars - MUST be washed down with a full, 8 - 12 ounce glass of milk.  Go figure.  He can't just enjoy the chocolate for its own sake.

Is there any way to break these "gotta have it" connections???

Another question for those with more experience:

Is it common for people with blood sugar issues to get profoundly sleepy shortly after they eat?  Unless it's a huge pig-out like what sometimes happens at Thanksgiving, I usually have lots of energy after I eat.  My DH, on the other hand, tends to fall asleep, either on the sofa or in his favorite chair.  He likes to have the TV on, but even if the program is absolutely fascinating, he almost always falls asleep.  Is this typical?

Just wondering.

Hubby has lost about 25 pounds!

He was like a little kid today.  I had been out grocery shopping when he got home, and he was practically dancing with excitement to show me the scales.  We have the kind with slidey weights, like they use at the doctor's office.  It was just a hair above 250 lbs.  By this time next week, if all goes well, he should be able to slide the "big" weight down to the 200 mark, which hopefully will be a big psychological boost for him.

I thought he had started at around 262, but he confessed that he had actually been closer to 275 a couple of months ago.  So he has made a significant start.  I let him know how proud I was of his efforts and did the best I could to celebrate along with him.

I really think that there has been a shift in the way he thinks about food.  At least he is beginning to be aware of what and how he eats.  He doesn't just shove endless quantities of food into his mouth while watching TV.  I realize there will probably be setbacks, but I feel very encouraged just by the AWARENESS.  It's a start.

Could sugar issues have been responsible for years of tantrums?

My DH came from a family of angry people.  Anger was freely and frequently aired in their household.  (My family was just the opposite - emotionally constipated, maybe - and to this day, I have difficulty expressing anger unless I'm so furious that I just can't hold it back any more.)

I had heard from DH's children that "Dad has a temper," but I had never witnessed it until we were engaged, with maybe two weeks to go until the wedding.  Then he had a screaming fit about something that seemed incredibly trivial to me at the time.  I wondered, "What the bloody Hell am I getting myself into??"

But it always seemed to me that behind the largely irrational temper outbursts, there was a genuinely kind, sensitive and caring person.  I still believe this is true, and we have been married for nearly 20 years.

But there have been times - not that many,  but significant - where it seemed to me that he went absolutely berserk about things that struck me as relatively trivial.  I used to think that this was because of childhood traumas.  (Everybody has childhood traumas over one thing or another, don't they??)

For example, early in our marriage, he went stark, raving mad, in a screaming fit, over a roll of misplaced Scotch tape.  I pointed out that it was no big deal to walk across the store and buy another one.  But no - he continued to rant, rave, and scream at me and the kids for three or four HOURS, until the tape was located.  I thought for years that maybe he had lost something as a small child and had been either severely punished for it, or threatened with terrible punishment, and that this was why he comes unglued if he misplaces something. (He has often said he remembers very little about his childhood.)

But now I wonder - could these fits of rage have been due to blood sugar highs or lows?  He has never gone to the doctor very often; he is a great believer in "toughing it out."  But to the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever said that there was anything irregular in his lab work until recently.

Any enlightenment would be appreciated.