{"id":205,"date":"2017-03-16T03:41:12","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T07:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scratchwritings.com\/wp\/?p=205"},"modified":"2018-07-29T13:35:27","modified_gmt":"2018-07-29T17:35:27","slug":"diabetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scratchwritings.com\/wp\/2017\/03\/16\/diabetes\/","title":{"rendered":"Chase’s Diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taken the day off work to go surprise Becke, as she was in the hospital still, I went to the bathroom when I got to her room after the 1.5 hr drive. Spent the day with her at Wake Med Cary hospital. Was a good day, beautiful outside, sunny clear skies. We walked down to the gift shop to grab her a Dr Pepper and walk in the court yard. Had to stop for the bathroom on the way, but luckily it was next to the bistro. We got a bite to eat and headed up stairs. By now the day was coming to a close and I needed to get home. Went to the bathroom and left. I was getting tired and my eyes were fuzzy.<\/p>\n

Wake up next morning and did my usual, bathroom, brush teeth and hair. Get dressed and go to work. Still sleepy, everything was a bit fuzzy, felt like I had been drinking all night and was very dehydrated feeling. Took a small 6 pack of water to work, only to drink that in the first hour it seemed. Had to pee so much that day it was clear so I guess I wasn’t dehydrated. \u00a0We ran out of water at work so I bought a case of 24 before the lunch break. By the time I left it was gone. I had drank them all and yep, you guessed it. I couldn’t stop peeing. My vision was really blurry and I couldn’t drink enough drink fast enough to quench my thirst. By this point Becke was worried and told me I needed to go to a doctor. Haha, yeah right. So we just canceled that idea.<\/p>\n

Well by now a week has gone by, I was drinking almost 80 bottles of water a day (two cases of the deer park 40 packs). I had developed not one, but two abscess the size of golf balls (literately), in my groin. I forced my self to go to work for 3 days until I couldn’t handle it any longer. The pain was so excruciating that I had attempted to cut it open my self in the hot shower. With a hand held mirror on the tub floor, a sterile syringe needle and hot water, I stabbed the needle into the abscess. \u00a0Blood went everywhere, I also had to do this procedure three separate occasions. So, on top of going to the bathroom every 4-7 min. Blurry vision in the distance. I had finally agreed to visit a doctor. This would be my first doctor appointment in many many years. In fact the last time I was at a hospital was after my car accident in 2008. So I found a local clinic that was reputable and scheduled an appointment. After I filled out all of this paperwork I get called back and check the normal blood pressure, temp, heart rate, height, weight and etc. then I sat in the room waiting. And that’s when everything changed. It was at that moment when I heard the latch on the door from when it shut, I knew deep inside of me that something was different and it wasn’t good.<\/p>\n

The door was heavy. Pinkish plum in color, tan walls with typical anatomy pictures and free brochures. The dos and donts of sex Ed and drugs education. Booooorrriinnnggg. So I started playing on my phone, waiting for the doctor when I heard a “knock knock” and the door crept open. It’s like time slowed down, the door slowly opened and there was this 5’10”, medium length black hair lady in a white coat with a clipboard, laptop in her arms and a stethoscope around her neck. “Hello, Mr. Lewis, I’m Ms. McDonald”. After the typical what brings you in and let’s talk symptoms. She asked why it has taken me so long to come in for a visit based on my concerns. I had explained in a polite manner “I don’t like doctors. It’s not that I’m scared it’s, just a waste of time to sit around just for bad news”. She immediately said “then it’s a good thing I’m not a doctor” now at first I was like then why the hell are you here looking at me naked? However, Ms McDonald is a NPC. So she looks at everything, has me get dressed, does a blood test and she left. Comes back in the room and immediately says she’s having me admitted into the hospital. My blood sugar came back 656. \u00a0I flat out refused to go. I was okay with what was going to be told me, I was okay with going to the clinic, but I refuse to be seen by medical staff at Cape Fear Valley medical hospital. The locals call it Death Valley for a good reason. Well, that day in August 2015 I learned I was a diabetic. My A1c was a 7.6, my blood sugar was between 650-700, my triglycerides were over 1650, my weight has skyrocketed to 345lbs.<\/p>\n

I started taking insulin injections twice a day. Taking 8 other medications. Vitamin D, Lantus(injection), Lisinopril, metformin, januvia, simvastatin, levothyroxin, bydureon(injection), saxenda(injection) and others. Ended up going to a endocrinologist, gastroenterologist, had a more X-rays and ultrasounds on my insides than ever. In fact the last time I got a tetanus shot was in 1992 at the naval hospital in Virginia. I had accepted the fact I was dying because my body was shutting down, all of the doctors told me I am very close to losing and I had to act fast and very aggressively. It was that moment I knew if my wife can handle her Crohn’s disease then I could handle this nonsense. Until I had my heart attack during hurricane matthew 2016, that’s another story for later on.<\/p>\n

Today, March 2017, I can say I gave up all(almost) sodas, excluding a Red Bull or Rockstar once every few months. I drink 16oz or less of Juice, 90% of the time it’s bottled water, still have a glass or two at most of sweet tea with dinner. Which I have recently reduced to 3\/4 of a cup of sugar when I make tea. Just enough to change the taste. No more fast foods, with-in moderation. I refused to give up chick fil a and bojangles. Once in a while I still may eat a crunchy taco from Taco Bell. Otherwise it’s all grilled or skillet cooked. Still working on this, but I now weigh 270-280 lbs. went from a size 52 waist to a 42. And I am no longer diabetic. My A1c is now a 5.2 and I’m only taking two pills, lisinopril and levothyroxin well I also take a vitamin D because I have a deficiency but whatever.
\nEveryone has struggles, some worse than others. It’s the scars that we all carry that remind us to either give up or push forward.<\/p>\n

I’m still choosing to push forward.<\/p>\n

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Taken the day off work to go surprise Becke, as she was in the hospital still, I went to the bathroom when I got to her room after the 1.5 hr drive. Spent the day with her at Wake Med Cary hospital. Was a good day, beautiful outside, sunny clear skies. We walked down to
+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scratchwritings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scratchwritings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scratchwritings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scratchwritings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scratchwritings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/scratchwritings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":346,"href":"https:\/\/scratchwritings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scratchwritings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scratchwritings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scratchwritings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scratchwritings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}