Since Dec 7th, 2012, when I was diagnosed with fullblown type II Diabetes, I have been up and down with my emotions and weight. I'm on four brand new medications, diet changes and tracking everything that I do now (diet, blood pressure, sleep and glucose). It all seemed overwhelming at first, until last night when I started to see a glimmer of balance and some hope.
My wife and I went to diabetes education group classes last night and for once I didn't feel alone in the world of my disease. These were people that were just diagnosed or have had it but didn't have the right education for how to manage it. Now, not everything the teachers were teaching was accurate. In fact, we walked away from the clases going, "huh?" at a lot of things my doctor had told us that contradict what these educators were saying. We just received the latest ADA book called Diabetes A to Z. I highly recommend it, because it is current and up to date information that is easy to understand. It's not a huge book either, but it has a lot of great information in it.
The teachers, a CDE (certified diabetic educator) and a CN (certified nutritionist) are not up to speed on some of their items they are teaching. So much so, that it is misleading to these people that are in the class with us. How confusing is that? How do you tell these nurses to go update themselves on the latest information and literature that is put out by the ADA and stop teaching things that are not part of the ADA curriculum anymore? So I just have to let that go and hope that these people get some right education from their doctors. I am going to tell my doctor (since he is prescribing these courses) that these two are not sharing some of the right information. The one has been teaching nutrition for 10 years and the other has been doing diabetes education for 27 years.
I'm from the IT field. Where we constantly have to learn new technologies and upgrade our coding skills when new versions of software come out. If you don't, you are out of a job or get left in the dust. These are people lives you are dealing with, and if you don't upgrade your skills, you should probably be out of a job too. Just sayin'.
So, we did walk away with some good tips and some not so good tips. But it was just wonderful to be with people who all had the same questions and were going through the same set of issues and emotions that we all go through when diagnosed. It was nice to have a group of people to lean on.
Maintaining the new regimen of exercise has been tough this week because I have a nasty head cold. Probably the worst I've had in a few years. I found out a lot of information of how our blood sugars get whacked out by having a cold or flu. I did not know could happen, until last night. So this is one piece of good information that I have walked away with last night.
I have started to use MyFitnessPal instead of MyNetDiary. The UI is more friendly and the database is absolutely huge! You can scan item bar-codes and set your goals, blog and make some new friends in weightloss along the way. I've seen SparkPeople, LoseIt and several others, but this works with my FitBit that I just ordered to help track my steps, stairs, sleep and other items. My software for my Accu-Check Nano came today as well, so now I can hook it up to my PC and transfer my data to the software.
It's all coming together to help me manage and put this thing called Diabetes in its place. Gives me hope and some peace.
Here is to a peaceful, prosperous and healthy New Year for everyone.
Namaste.
