(This post first appeared on my Substack on July 20, 2022.)
The first sign I should have paid attention to was bathroom frequency.
Around the beginning to middle of February, I felt like I had to go to the bathroom. A lot. Which was odd at first, because it’s not like I was drinking that much more than usual. It might have come on gradually, with trips slowly becoming more frequent. I admit that I really don’t remember when frequency increased, but the rate of visits to the bathroom went up.
After that, I found myself needing to drink more than usual. Which created something of a vicious cycle where I was drinking a lot and going to the bathroom a lot. But the relief I found from drinking more liquids was not necessarily there. I was starting to feel like Tantalus with my never ending thirst.
I also found my energy levels decreasing. I just wanted to come home from work and collapse onto the couch, spacing out and watching television. Except for when I had to go to the bathroom. Which caused me to basically just hop from couch to bathroom and back again until it was time for bed—where I would then get up a couple of times a night to, yep, visit the restroom.
But stubbornly, I just decided I would power through. Maybe I was just going through a weird winter illness. I would be fine. Eventually.
You would think that given my propensity for research, and my reputation for possessing a certain level of intelligence, that I would have started to recognize the warning signs. Hell, even when my vision started to get a bit blurry, you would have thought something inside me would have trigged, “Hey. Idiot. Go do something about this.”
It wasn’t until St. Patrick’s Day weekend, when we came home from a brief visit to the festivities for the first time in three years and I collapsed on the bed upstairs, that my wife mentioned, “Hey. There’s a chance you might be dealing with diabetes.”
I kind of said, “Oh.” Not that I didn’t believe her, but again, the brief bit of toxic masculinity and pride that still resides within me was like, “Ok. Well, maybe I know what the problem is. But I’ll still deal with it later.” As if the problem was magically going to resolve itself.
The weekend came and passed. I went to work Monday and struggled through the day. Honestly, struggled like I had been for the most part the last month of so because again, energy levels were flagging and I was exhausted.
Tuesday morning hit. I dropped the kid off at school and started to drive to work again. But then I decided I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go into the office today. So I drove to the local convenient care.
The convenient care referred me to an emergency room.
The emergency room doctors called for an ambulance to take me to the hospital.
I was a newly diagnosed Type 2 diabetic suffering from DKA, or diabetic ketoacidosis. The body starts breaking down fat too quickly, causing the blood to become acidic. That’s the back of the envelope description of what was happening. Symptoms include thirst (check), frequent urination (check), weakness (check), confusion (check), and fruity-scented breath (check, I found out later).
I found myself, for the first time in my life, spending the night in the hospital as a patient. It might have been one of the more uncomfortable nights in my life, hooked up to fluids and insulin. I couldn’t really get comfortable in the hospital bed, and I couldn’t sleep for more than an hour straight since the nurses had to come in and check my blood glucose levels via fingerstick every hour to ninety minutes.
I was miserable. The kid wasn’t allowed to come to see me, mainly because I didn’t want to increase his already high anxiety levels. And while I was awake and alertish, I was tired and hooked up to machines.
And during my sleepless night, my thoughts went to my dad. And that was part of why I didn’t want my son to come to the hospital.
When I was in ninth grade, Dad had a collapsed lung and spent some time in the hospital. He came home eventually and was fine for a while.
But he was dead a little over a year later. He got some kind of infection (I don’t recall the name now—but it was unrelated to the hospital stay). He was a heavy smoker and a heavy drinker, which obviously does not pair well with a collapsed lung.
I hated going to visit him in the hospital. And during my senior year, Mom had to go into the hospital for thyroid surgery. Again, outside of my son being born, hospitals are places I have no desire to be.
When I was told I could go home later the next day, I was ready to go. I wanted to be gone. And I made a promise to myself that day that I was NOT going to come back into this place again as a patient.
Let me be frank: I ate like shit quite a bit over the course of my life. And my activity level was sedentary at best. Since I left the hospital, I have made dietary changes like reducing sugar and carbohydrates if not outright eliminating them at some meals. I actually pay attention to portion sizes now. No more sweet tea, Powerade, or soda. Minimal pasta and rice. Finding alternative breads that have lower carbohydrate counts. Eating more vegetables generally. Eating less, generally.
And increasing activity by taking longer walks with the dog post-dinner when the weather was cooler, and hitting the gym now after dinner since the weather has changed to the usually Las Vegas summer inferno.
I can’t tell you what I was at my heaviest because our scale maxed out at 330 pounds. I was somewhere north of that. That’s the best that I could tell you. Before March, the last time I had tried to weight myself was in December to see if the scale was working. It errored out.
On March 30, I had a follow-up appointment with a doctor for initial check-in. At that point, I was at 333 pounds per the office scale. I was at 330 on our home scale. As of a month ago, on the office scale, I was at 303 pounds. 300 on our home scale. I’ve dropped another five to seven pounds since then. I admit that this is probably the best I have felt in years. I don’t even miss things like soda or even the amount of food I used to eat. I have cravings still, but I’ve learned my willpower is strong and I don’t give in.
The biggest issue moving forward, though, is managing clothing while I continue to shrink. But it’s a small price to pay for making the needed changes so I can be around for my son as he goes through high school and for my wife so she can maintain her sanity.
So far, so good.
But to everyone, just note: If things don’t feel right, go to the doctor. Get yourself checked out before it’s too late.
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