Day 153 Holiday Cheer

Things have been busy around here, as is often the case once Thanksgiving hits and the holidays arrive.

I can tell I am overall feeling better because I am finally getting things done.  I've foregone the usual Christmas letter in lieu of personalized hand-written notes in the cards. I've contacted insurance carriers regarding COBRA and Open Enrollment (which currently ends this week). I've attended three doctor appointments, baked cookies, shredded and tossed a good three waste baskets of unneeded paper items, gotten Christmas linen washed and onto various table tops, painted the deck, and have been consistent with drinking my concoction.

I've lost two for real pounds, and my blood sugar overall is a WHOLE lot better - we're talking 130 for fasting.

Last night, a group of us (nearly twenty) rented a limo bus and toured town looking at Christmas lights. 

One of the ladies used to own this company, and when it was sold she maintained connections with the buyer.  We got a great deal on this ride.  We were in the bus for about three hours, going all over town.

Day 152 Potporri

A little more of this and that.

C is stuffed up, feverish and in general, just miserable. He needs a couple of days of sleep which is not going to happen since they need every breathing body available for the close of open enrollment.

Hopefully the computer systems will be working properly.  It hearkens back to the days of the first open enrollment  where the state exchanges had massive web failures.  You'd think after all this time, properly working web sites and programs wouldn't be an issue.

This sort of thing is not uncommon, unfortunately.  Little tweaks have to be made each year - things like changing the plan year date, or the rates.  But, in two different companies now, I've seen that what should be simple isn't.  Updates break programs.  A little planning and a whole lot of testing should prevent overload failure but it doesn't.

Day 151 Getting in the Groove

Well, well, well.  Another post...of sorts.

I have made a list, yeah, and while I am not getting everything done on the list, I am checking things off and have even planned a few things for tomorrow and the day after.

This makes me feel like I am moving ahead, even if it is just a little bit at a time.  Some of the things on the list are absurdly simple, things like taking a shower.

Showing may seem like a ever day necessity, but when you are depressed and don't have a desire to go anywhere, and feel the only place you can be is your bed, the thought of showering plummets to the bottom of the survival list.

Day 150 Baby Steps

Today I noticed that I felt a little better. I think this is because my blood sugar level was close to normal this morning.  Great news, and hopefully, I'm on a better path.

Besides my feet and heart, the wild swings of my blood sugar have affected my vision.  I felt it change since Thanksgiving and so today I visited my eye doctor who specializes in retina issues.  I was pleasantly surprised as my vision had not changed as much as I feared.  I must remember, often times, fear is "false evidence appearing real." 

Day 149 Ashamed

I can't believe it has been nearly three months since my last post. Life has been busy, sort of. Things have happened. Depression has not been defeated.

So, I'll try to catch up a little bit and let you know about some of the dangerous living (or not) I've been doing.

Most recently, I had another stay at the University.  I went to walk my little guy and by the time I got home I could barely breath and my chest hurt - nothing like I have ever experience before. I went upstairs and took my blood pressure.

  It was 209/118 with a pulse rate of 115. A stop at Urgent Care registered slightly lower and they wasted no time in telling me I needed to get to the E.R. (my son was with me).

Day 148 Gratitude

In one of my daily readings I read about a person who decided to list, alphabetically, the items they were grateful for.  At the time, it was a begrudging task, but the author did it anyway as a gesture of trying to be more positive.  Doing such a task plants seeds of gratitude, and if you review your list frequently (every day?) you move from duty to sincerity.

So, I thought I would try the exercise, not out of duty, but because I have a number of people, things and events that I am truly grateful to have in my life.

Day 147 Trying

Depression is insidious.

Sometimes it comes as a relentless, yet out-of-the-blue sadness.

Sometimes it is a total lack of motivation

Sometimes all you want to do is crawl into bed and hide under the blankets. Sometimes you are angry, at no one in particular, and everyone in general.

There are some doctors who believe depression is related to the food we consume.  This isn't really surprising when you think about the huge numbers of people who are pre-diabetic or diabetic. According to one article in Arch Intern Med that was published in November of 2010, (Directional association between depression and type 2 diabetes mellitus in women) diabetic women are at a 29 percent higher risk for depression, and women on insulin are at a whopping 53 percent higher chance of manifesting depression.

Depression is real.

Depression is crippling.

And lots of people are dealing with depression through medication. According to Scientific American eight to ten percent of Americans are on anti-depressants. Mad in America reports thirteen percent of Americans are medicated for depression - up from almost seven percent in 1999.

That's a lot of people.