In Which The Pancreas Does More Than I Thought
Today was one of those 3 month appointment with the CDE days.
The majority of the appointment seems insignificant compared to the realization that my pancreas serves more of a purpose than to just give my body insulin. That even though it’s dead to me, it’s not dead to the rest of my body. Or if it is dead to the rest of my body, it still retains the right to rot and kill the rest of me. I mean, seriously, I have diabetes, I never thought that I’d hear the word “pancreas” again in conjunction with any other illness I may come up with. I just kind of figured that since it wasn’t worth replacing (read: transplanting) that it was just one of those organs that could work or not work but it didn’t matter either way because it could just stay there in it’s little corner of the body, end of story. Apparently, that’s not the case, as I so learned when the word “pancreatitis” came up in conjunction with my stomach aches, nausea, and vomiting. Tests are being run for pancreatitis, although, they’re just running them so that they’re doing their due diligence, they really don’t think it’s pancreatitis, but they’re making sure. (at least, that’s how I rendered what I was told)
It’s more likely that my issue is celiac, they’re testing for that also. (But celiac didn’t cause any bright lights to turn on in my head, it’s just one of those things where I think life could become more closer to impossible to handle than it already is…i mean, seriously, think of starbucks, something tells me that will be leaving my list of good places for breakfast if I have celiac, and that will be a big bummer)
In other news, well…there wasn’t other news. My A1c was 6.8 and it really didn’t matter to me this time because I really didn’t put anything into my diabetes in the last 3 months. And me not putting anything into my diabetes actually brought my A1c down a who tenth of a point from last time. (Last time it was 6.9)
Abalisciousness
It’s been a while since I’ve actually taken the time to really do any training/working out…in fact, it’s been a couple weeks. I fell off all kinds of wagons what can I say…
So, last night, I called Lolo and asked if we could do 2 bike rides, a swim and a run this week; but when I was asking that, I forgot all about her triathlon that she has on Saturday and that she’s tapering this week. Luckily for me she’s all about meeting me in the middle so I’m getting in a bike ride, a swim, and an ab workout. Tonight’s hardcore ab workout. If I keep this up, I’ll have nice abs and a good core.
Tonight’s workout came from Women’s Health Magazine and it’s entitled Gold Medal Abs. I couldn’t do all the moves because I didn’t have all the equipment (and one of them is near impossible anyways, The Wicked Wiper, which if there’s one person I think can do it, it’s Nancy because she’s got a rock solid core).
I was able to do 7 out of the 9 moves and for the 2 I couldn’t do, they were substituted with the plank and the bicycle crunch.
I did the whole routine and then I did it again. I was hurting when I was done. Heck, I was hurting before I was done. But, pain is beauty, and aren’t these abs beautiful:
Yup, those are the goal…and when I get there, I’ll be abaliscious.
Eye exam or heart test?
I went in for my annual eye exam this afternoon, although, I must say that it’s debatable whether it was really about my eyes or perhaps my heart was being tested. I went through the normal tests and the good news is that my eye sight has barely changed. That excites me. I won’t ever forget when after a couple months of diabetes I had to go get glasses. And then things really deteriorated when I was 20 and had to get bi-focals. I was 20 for petes sake. (Who is pete anyway?) In any case, I was excited that my sight has only a fraction of a bit continued to deteriorate, the doctor (and me) attribute this to the care I’ve been giving my diabetes over the last 2 years. I just love that my eye doctor gets excited over my 6.5 hbA1c. Of course, he’s diabetic as well, so maybe that has something to do with it.
So, what does any of this have to do with my heart? Well, it was racing because when he was looking into my eyes, that I couldn’t see out of mind you because they were dialated, he spent a lot of long time on my left eye. Looking in it, using different instruments to look into it. Because, and I quote “I want to get a better look”. This went on far longer than normal. So I asked about it. He said that he saw something on the Optomap and just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t anything to be concerned about.
Now for those of you that don’t know, the optomap is a cool alternative (in most cases) to the dilated eye exam. I’m lucky, I have diabetes, I get to have both. Call it eye insurance if you will. Between the dilated exam and the optomap, they get to see all kinds of things from all kinds of views. The optomap, if you can imagine, looks at the inside of the back of your eye. So imagine your eye is a ball, it’s looking at the inside of the ball, but if your pupil is at the front, it’s looking at the back. It’s hard to explain. If you don’t get it, ask your eye doctor, they can explain it.
So, whatever was in the optomap that he saw, was apparently an odd reflection of light that’s not supposed to be there. But it’s me, nothing is as it should be so it was there. But he assured me more than once that I really had nothing to be concerned about.
And, I learned that our eyes can get freckles much the same way our skin can. Last year I had a small one, this year, it looked a little bigger on the optomap, we’ll be keeping an eye on it. Ba-dum-dum-ch.