living on the edge of insulin

...Fire Dad scanning the group W gymnastics bench sees me, nods, & politely finagles a seat beside me.  A little gym talk, a little firehouse humor, and then he turns looks me in the face, "What are you doing here. You need to be running." And metaphorically the clouds part & the sun shines & I run off happily into light & shadows of the Autumn sun. Not so metaphorically I know he is right.  And I know I am ready for what is ahead of me on this road.

 ~The End~

Oh, wait we didn't do the beginning.  The beginning is me (again metaphorically) standing in a room of people sitting in a circle of chairs and saying, "Hi, my name is Misty and I am Diabetic who doesn't know her A1C but I was just told that if I don't clean up my act that my Kidney's are going to pack up my liver and go home to their mother."  I sit down and the circle people say back, "Hi Misty. Do you want sugar in your coffee?"

Transitional element: I feel like shit. Please expand on that description.  No really I would rather not but if you insist how about a garden slug sprinkled with salt or that witch in Wizard of Oz when Dorthy spills water on her (nasty witch like attitude intact).

The middle of this story is more like a Ping-Pong match between Internal Medicine and Nephrology.  For optimal kidney health do A, B, & C unless you are a Diabetic then consult your underlying disease.  Good RX's for kidney's are X or Y but if you are Diabetic then consult your underlying disease.  I counted them there are 13 main concepts in kidney health and 10 of the 13 kick you right back to consult your underlying disease....grrrr. 

That was where I left and went hiking.  Ironically in the foothills above the hospital.

That was where even though every muscle in my body hurts I went hiking.

That was where I remembered I have done this before, and won.

That was when I came home mostly ready to fight but something in me was missing, an important something I needed to find. 

Transitional element: Returning home from a beautiful hike mostly vowing to handle this.  I get out of my car and suddenly realize it is rolling away.  I jump into action throw myself against it grabbing the roof and a door handle and then I realize what I had realized wasn't happening.  So I am standing in the driveway looking like I just ran myself over sideways with my own car because the very same neurological symptom that led to my diabetic diagnosis was back,  Oh you are shitting me we are ALL the way back here?!?!?! How did I let this happen?

Plot Twist: I decide fuck it. I'm back to I could walk my dog 20 minutes a day but that is all I can do, so good enough, well good enough if I want to die young.  So I am sitting on the bench with my decision to wuss out not feeling well about it or me and I see Fire Dad walk into the gym and he is scanning the group W bench.....

I have yet to have a moment in my life when I decide to do something disastrous that a man has not suddenly said the exact words I needed to hear to stop me.

Epilogue:

Standing in the open door to his office.  "Dr. if you never see me again, if today I walk out of your office and I never came back what would you want to say to me?"  "Run.... And you have a follow up appointment on Wednesday.  If you miss it I will hunt you down and bill you."

All roads lead to here: I was born to run.  The science is very simple some of us are born to be athletes because of a little make up known as the Thrifty-Geno-Type, where the body prefers to hold fuel in fat storage in case of famine. It is up to the owner of the body to decide whether that fat goes into powerful muscle or to dangerous pockets of junk. When your body takes the groceries from the car to the cellar by passing the kitchen there are 2 ways to get it back into daily use: Insulin, the dumbwaiter or run up and down the stairs using GLUT4 a byproduct of muscle break down caused by running type exercise.

This stupid Geno-Type is why my diabetes is so hard to treat through medicine and so easy to treat through good health.  It also the Geno-Type of Super Athletes around the world.  I believe one day what I have (& other 'Adult Onsets') will be divided from Type I and II into a third category of disease.  I am in an elite category of the metabolically challenged the RX really is eat perfectly & run. In sickness and in health.

Damn, it is a long lonely road back without that black dog...