So friday I got hit with the Big D diagnosis.
Granted, I was suspecting it, and so was my gp, but it was still a shock. It’s one of those “My neighbour, not me” situations despite the family history and the other facts speaking against me dodging the bullet. But a shock is a shock and I found myself heading towards a really, really bad mental place. A place I’ve been before and really don’t want to visit again. However luckily I got smart before it got to bad.
One of the smartest things I did was going online and asking for advice on how to live with it. Not only did I find several yummy looking recipes for chocolate cake (YAY!), I also realised that getting Type 2 Diabetes isn’t exactly “wave bye bye to life and turn into a walking needlcushion” situation. And, deities, just HOW melodramatic does THAT sound? While I now have to be more carefull about things like foodstuffs and exercise, theres a good chance that I can avoid the needlecushion scenario if I’m not stupid about it. Besides, this gives me excellent motivation for finally getting into better shape (Whom am I kidding? Right now my “shape” is close to non-existant). And life? Where the hell did I get the idea that getting D is an excuse for giving up on that?
But to have a life, I have to make sure I’m not suddenly OD’ing on sugar. And that means a lifestyle change.
So bolstered by the support from my friends and family, both offline and online, I went just a teeeny bit nuts over the weekend and started emptying out food supplies and checking sugar contents etc. That was not the hard part. The hard, and expensive, part was, as it turns out, finding various replacements for the foodstuff I couldn’t keep.
3 stores and 2 hours later, I had found my artificial sweetners (both for my tea and for baking), multivitamin tabs (just to be on the safe side) and a soy replacement for my milk (even a chocolate milk tasting one even if the vanilla flavoured one have me going “hmmmm.”) and a couple of other, more normal items (apples etc).
Now part of this exercise is weight control. Yes, I’ll admit that weight IS an issue. That means that I’m even switching my flour over to something more healthy. So someone pointed me towards ground up almonds. And that’s where my only failure so far in the shopping spree occured. You can’t get it in Denmark. Well, actually you can. There’s this one online place, but paying 254 dkr + transport for 2 kg is more than a bit excessive, so the hunt goes on for something else. I’ll let you know what happens.
Tags: D for Diabetes, diary
