11 Years of Living
Today is the 11th anniversary of my initial diagnosis with Type 2 Diabetes and Congestive Heart Failure. My goodness, what a rollercoaster ride it has been. Many things have changed since that day in late December 2008. My diabetes diagnosis chief among them. I actually live with LADA (Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults) or Type 1.5. Wow, eleven years. Eleven years of knowing, caring, surviving, and sharing. Eleven years of knowing that I have two invisible chronic illnesses for which there are no cures. Eleven years of knowing that I’m not alone in my fight. That there are millions of others fighting the same things. Eleven years of getting to know some of the most amazing people around. Lots of…
Choosing Life and Sobriety
As this is Mental Illness Awareness Week (October 6-October 12) and addiction and substance abuse are a part of mental health, I wanted to share something here that I shared publicly on Facebook for the first time last month during National Sober Day. I don’t talk about it much, but alcoholism runs deep in my veins, much like it did my father who was an abusive alcoholic when I was a child. There was once a time when I could and would drink you under the table. The hard stuff was like water in my system. I loved the taste of it and the burn as it went down. But no longer. All of that changed for me when I…
Playing catch-up
So, it’s been a while since I last updated the blog and some things have happened in that time that I feel a need to write about. This will be a bit long, so bear with me. Esophageal ManometryOn January 29th, my new gastroenterologist had me undergo a test called Esophageal Manometry. The test is used to measure the functionality of the muscles and lower sphincter of the esophagus and determine if there are issues. The procedure wasn’t the most pleasant of ways to spend a morning. To begin, I was given a cup of lidocaine gel to swallow and then a syringe full of the same gel was emptied into my left nostril. A thin probe was then passed…
10 Years of Living
Today is the 10th anniversary of my initial diagnosis with Type 2 Diabetes and Congestive Heart Failure. My goodness, what a rollercoaster ride it has been. Many things have changed since that day in late December 2008. My diabetes diagnosis chief among them. I actually live with LADA (Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults) or Type 1.5. Wow, ten years. Ten years of knowing, caring, surviving, and sharing. Ten years of knowing that I have two invisible chronic illnesses for which there are no cures. Ten years of knowing that I’m not alone in my fight. That there are millions of others fighting the same things. Ten years of getting to know some of the most amazing people around. Lots of love to everyone…
A Gastric Emptying Study and an Answer
Last Thursday, October 11, I spent the better part of the day at the hospital for a gastric emptying study. As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been dealing with some GI issues for a while now, without much luck in getting answers about what’s going on. This test was the next step in the process of figuring out the problem with my guts. My arrival time for the test that morning was 7:30 a.m., which was a real challenge considering that I work nights and my sleep schedule is weird. Unfortunately, a combination of anxiety and insomnia, as well as GI symptoms, led to my having no sleep before going to the hospital. So, I was feeling pretty…
