The Diagnosis

One month ago I was diagnosed with diabetes.  It terrified me.  I didn't know what to do.  I didn't know what to think.  I read online about blindness, neuropathy, amputaded limbs, deafness, heart disease and other complications.  Was this my fate?  Was I resigned to slowly degenerate into incredible pain and loss of all my sensory abilities?

The doctor said that with lifestyle changes I could prevent or at least delay these complications, but I was terrified of lifestyle changes.  Could I never enjoy food again?  Was I going to spend the rest of my life gnawing on a carrot?

I literally wept.  I'm not an emotional person.  But I wept.  I cried for hours.  My poor wife wanted to console me.  She wanted to give me comfort, but in that moment, there was no comfort.

She knows how much I like to travel.  She wanted to get my mind on something happy.  She said, "maybe if you lose some weight we could reward you with a neat trip to somewhere you've always wanted to go, like Tahiti."

I really love her.  She knows me really well.  That was an excellent thing to say.  But, unfortunately, at that moment, it was not consoling.  I lashed out at her, "My favorite thing while travelling is to eat food.  I can't enjoy food anymore.  What's the point?"

I went and laid in bed.  I cried some more.  She asked me what I needed.  I told her I needed to be left alone.  I needed to mourn.

I've learned a lot in the last month.  Diabetes doesn't have to be the terror I thought it was that first day.  I haven't arrived, by any means.  But I've begun a journey.  I thought that, perhaps, I could share some of the stops on my journey.  If it helps out someone else, then it was worth it.

I keep a journal, so I'll probably post a bunch of stuff from my journal over the next few days to get everything caught up to this point.  After that, my journey will be in real time.