Chapter 1: Taking Stock

Hehe. I envy you simple people with only 2-4 maladies and specialists to deal with. Just kidding - there are so many people with bigger problems than me I shouldn't even joke about it. 

I do have a laundry list though - ancient history ones not included!  I suppose if you don’t have many challenges of this sort to work with , then this blog won’t be of interest to you (yet).

Let’s start with known my own diagnoses and current status

Diagnosis	Current status	Trend	Treatment
IDDM	Control Fair	Stable	Insulin pump
Hypertension	Good control	Stable	Lisinoprinil
Depression	Pretty good	Stable	Welbutrin
Gastroparesis	Not good	Stabilizing	Zofran, Ativan, Erythromycin
Dupuytren’s	Not good	Worsening	None so far
Chronic Sarcoid	inactive	Stable	None so far
Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis	Inactive	Stable	None so far

Don’t worry, if I forget any, they’ll come up I’m sure.

You may think that a list of symptoms is where I’ll go next, but I’m sick of sticking bandaids on symptoms, so I’m going instead to make an attempt at the entire me. Which means more than a list of inter-related maladies.

And I didn’t even count the basic age (and vanity) ones I’d like to ultimately include – because it is too easy to start there and not dig deeper from my experience.  Perfect example? Lose some weight OR exercise regularlarly OR control bG, but to do all at once seems impossible. This can not be impossible people!! (phew) But it is an overwhelming amount of work when you’ve got a full time job and 2 kids. That’s a given.  We WILL get back to age and vanity later.  But just for the completeness of taking stock here are the vanities.

Weight	Slightly over	Trending to worse	Weight watchers
Exercise/Fitness	Out of shape	Stable	Ad hoc spasticitiy
Skin (might have to bump up to medical category due to risk)	Spotty, saggy	Who knows	Expensive creams and lotions!

Other conspicuous absence?  Depending on you practices or faith (or both or neither), I haven’t included the spiritual and emotional side of the self-help work needed by moi.  Probably I should deal with that before age and vanity, but I guess it all depends how you look at it. Many would say that we start here and work from that place. I won't argue with enlightened people, because what do I know?  But for me, I'm still smarting from some specific times when I felt alone and no answer from the wilderness - I need to prepare myself better first.  On the other hand, I feel like CS Lewis in that I still pray all the time because I have no other choice. I'm helpless. I know it won't change God.

aherm moving along to something no quite so depthly, here is my initial stocklist for this area.

Grounded Sense of Self	Not good	Worsening	None so far
Spiritual Connection	Medium	Stable	CEC, prayer
Community Connection	Medium	Stable	Volunteer, interact

And what have I don't all day besides continue to be half=well after a grueling stomach "evil time"? I've made an appointment to get my teeth cleaned. YES I HAVE!  And with a new Endocrinologist, may my old own RIP with his paper filing system and "quirky" office staff - I will miss him, after all it's been 25 year relationship. But I'll get over it quickly because I'm fickle like that. And Emailed photos of my clawed Dupuytren's hand to a hand specialist, and left messages for a gastroenterologist (say that 3 times fast!) and another message for the Diabetes Angels - god I hope they haven't all taken different jobs in the 10 years since I was last there!

And next for today? ANOTHER BLOG POST! but this one on my normal light and crafty blog. just a slight resuscitation to keep it at least alive...

After that, I am showering, getting dressed and going for a little walk in the open air. Maybe just to the corner to get a tea - but something anyway.