Calling This Catch Up Week

I feel like blogging, but being away so long, it makes me feel a bit overwhelmed and I dont know where to start, so I will just take it one day at a time and try to start where I left off. I have peeked in on some folks here and there, even though I haven't left a comment. I want to get back to visiting blogs regularly, Facebook is nice when you are pressed for time, but sometimes you need to sit and think and write and read.

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Lets start with my visit with Sherry. Her and her husband Kelly, and their two daughters have moved from Phenix City, where my truck was stolen right out of their driveway. It has been three months since that bad event happened, and I just got my truck back last week after a lot of hassle with the insurance over many things. I won't rehash those last three months, it is over, and I am glad.

They moved about thirty minutes northwest of where they used to live. It is a nice rural quiet area. It is actually a half hour closer to me so it only takes two and a half hours to get there now. I was very excited to go and visit and see Sherry and their new place.

On the back burner, I had been having some trouble with abdominal pain. If I ate certain foods, which then was a trial and error mystery, I had two days of pain and it put me to bed, along with a third day of extreme weakness and recovery. At this time I had lost a total of thirty pounds in about six weeks. I thought I was just doing a REALLY great job with my diet. Really, in the back of my mind I knew it was too much too fast, but when you have been overweight as long as I have, you can hardly frown at what was happening to me. The pounds were melting off, who cares why.

I felt good that Friday morning and made the trip. I got there around noonish and we went wandering throughout the house as she showed me everything. I have to say, I am so happy for her. This place is so much better than where they were. Such a big step up. A lot more room and with two girls they needed it. Her oldest son still stops in and stays a few days here and there, so its good to have that extra room. We wandered outside and walked about the yard. She told be about all the cleaning up she had been doing. We walked back to the neighbors that own all the property and I met them. They were a bit strange, but nice enough. They live in a two story 'building' they built themselves. The bathroom is seperate from this building. There are only two rooms to this building. A bedroom downstairs and a one upstairs. They only seem to really cook on the grill. The fridge and a counter are under the steps that go to the upstairs bedroom. It overlooks a little tiny pond and has a deck attached to it. Very basic necessities. To each his own I reckon. After we visited a bit Sherry took us up the road to the neatest place to eat. It overlooks water and is actually a river not a lake, even though it looks like a lake. We ate lunch there, and thats when I got into trouble. I knew better, but I ordered chili cheese fries. I only ate like three or four bites. I had a hamburger and ate half of that. After we ate we went for a walk down on the walkway and dock area. The guy that runs the little store there has a boat that he transports folks up and down the river with. Its mostly just a tour/fun type thing I think. We asked him to take a picture of us on the boat. He was very nice and took our picture. After lunch and a little walk and talk we went on back to the house. It was a couple of hours later I started to feel it. The pain was coming. It always starts small, but there is no stopping it once it starts, but I ignored it because I didnt want it to happen, I didnt want it to ruin our visit. But it did, eventually.

That evening we sat around talking and I guess it was around ten o'clock everyone was winding down and we were pretty tired so everyone went on to bed. I was not feeling very good, but thought maybe if I could just sleep it off. That was not to be though.

It got worse and worse, to the point the pain was causing me to cry and moan and groan. I would fall asleep for a little while and wake back up with the pain worse. This continued all night.

I can't drive in the dark. I guess I could if it was an emergency, but I just dont like to do it if I dont have to. It had become quite foggy overnight also. Time ticked by so slowly. Now I had decided soon as it was light out I was going to drive myself home. Waiting for daylight was horrible. Around 6 am Sherry woke up and came in and I told her how bad off I was and my plans to get home. We talked and I cried and she hugged me and I told her I was really worried, that something was wrong with me. She comforted me like a best friend does.

Finally daylight...and fog were arriving. I didnt care. I had been slowly packing my bag up for the past hour and was ready. I drove the whole way home moaning and groaning and calling for my mama. Oh yes I did. Mamas, even when you are grown can help you feel better. I called her so many times, I wondered if she could pick up on it that morning. Just calling out Mama, helped me get through and get me home.
Of course there was the occasional prayer to God to get me home in there too, pleading for me to make it home.

Finally I made it home. I spent the whole day in pain. That night at 10:30 I told Ian I couldnt take it anymore. Something was wrong with me, and to take me to the ER. It didnt take too long and I was back in an ER room and they had an IV in and pain meds going in. Instant relief. There is nothing like it. I was so relieved. After some bloodwork and that morning an ultrasound I was released.

I was told I had Type 2 diabetes. I was scheduled for a catscan several days later. That was done. Results, the same as the ultrasound, cysts on the liver.

I know I am repeating myself on some of this, but I want to just go in order of events, so I apologize for that.

Skipping forward some, to catch up on my condition now.

I have been taking my blood glucose every day. I cant get it down and I am scheduled to go in for 'insulin training' I guess you could call it, tomorrow. I will go to my regular doctor, which just happens to be a diabetes specialist, and learn how to give myself shots and when and just all the information that goes with having it. I had a hard time accepting this reality at first, but I am up for it now. Its what has to be done, so I will do it.

I went to an upper GI doctor last week to see what is going on with the abdominal pain. He is not so sure it is my liver causing the pain. Yes, there are three lesions on my liver, but with the food triggering it so soon after eating, he wants to check my stomach first, and schedule a mammogram. He wants to make sure there are no lesions or cysts, whatever you call it, in these areas. Meaning he wants to make sure what is on the liver did not spread (BIG C WORD IMPLIED) from somewhere else.

We all know what a mammogram is. Now I have been scheduled for an endoscopy on December 2. The doctor is not going to do a liver biopsy unless its really necessary. Right now, he doesnt think it is. One thing at a time he says. Okay. So, they are going to knock me out completely for this, because I told him the truth. I am scared of anything invasive. I dont want to know it, feel it, see it hear it. I dont want to know it happened. This procedure involves running a light and camera down my throat into my stomach my means of a tube like structure. Maybe I just have an ulcer, that would be nice to know it was just an ulcer. So now I have to program myself to accept that this IS going to happen on December 2, and I must accept that it is for the best. They have to find out what is causing the pain, because I cannot live like this forever, wondering what I can and can't eat.

I have discovered that spaghetti sauce, and chili are off limits. You might say oh, thats easy, its the tomato base that is causing it, from acid in the tomato. Nope. I can eat a tomato without any trouble. Slice it up and eat it and I am fine. You might also think I cant eat spicy foods. Wrong again. I can eat my favorite food in the whole world, with no pain. That would be hot wings. I have made them at home and eaten them out at a restaurant, and I am fine afterwards. Makes no sense I know.

So you may be asking, what do I do when I get pain? I have a prescription for pain killers right now that works great. It helps me function while I get through those two days of pain, dulling it considerably, and helping me sleep too. If I dont want to sleep I can fight it off with this pain killer, and I like that. I am not addicted, don't worry. But I can see how people would get addicted, I sure can see why. I only take them when I end up with a bout of two day stretch abdominal pain. I try to watch what I eat to avoid it all together. It is very hard to take care of my family, the house and the animals if I go down for two days. So the best thing to do is try not to do it at all.

I have now lost a total of 52 pounds, so the picture I show you of Sherry and I is not current. I have lost 22 more pounds since then, but on a good diet, not because of the diabetes. I limit my sugar intake and so the weight loss has slowed to a more normal pace.

So today you are caught up on my visit with Sherry, which ended a day early. I didnt get to take many pictures at all, but I know there will be a next time, when I am well again and can visit, hopefully in Spring. Who knows, maybe sooner?














Each day this week I will catch up on something. There are PLENTY of chicken related things to talk about, and I will, after I have caught up on everything else. Tomorrow...Lllamas.