Acid In The Blood
I heard type two diabetes likened to acid in the blood. It’s frightening because it’s true.
When your body cannot produce enough insulin to keep up, sugar runs through your system unchecked. It cuts like tiny shards of glass, racing through your bloodstream. Over time, it erodes every major organ in your body, and one day, things you took for granted are taken from you—things like using the bathroom without assistance, or walking around.
You know when it’s coming. Everyone has their feet go to sleep every so often. Not everyone has them wake up again. You look down and they have swollen like flesh balloons. You wonder if they’ve always been this way, or did it gradually happen and you just didn’t notice? Did you think that if you ignored the acid in your blood, it would go away?
If you’re still lucky, you’re feet tingle as though they’re asleep. If you’re not, you feel nothing. The nerves in your foot, eroded beyond repair, have died off. Welcome to neuropathy.
You can’t go back after this. After this, the doctors begin cutting things off.
This is the real horror of type two diabetes; it takes everything from you before it takes your life. Your sight, your ability to walk around, your ability to touch and feel, everything you love is stripped away as the acid melts away your body before finally killing it.
I’ve had the acid in my blood for more than ten years. It’s put me in the hospital no less than five times, most recently, this past week. I do the best I can, on most days, to take care of myself. I watch what I eat. I exercise five days a week, knowing that cardio is my best defense against the acid. At this point, I’m not sure why cardio is so effective against the acid. I just know it is, and that’s all I need, for now.
Yet, I follow all the steps, I stay current on my medication, and it’s still not enough. As I get older, I wonder if I can outrun the acid; or is this what is finally going to bring me down.
This post was inspired by a recent trip I took to the emergency room because my blood sugar reached nearly 400. I take a lot of dramatic liberties here, but type two diabetes is very, very, real, and works in the same manner I’ve described here.
More than two hundred and twenty million people in the world have diabetes, and the disease has claimed just over a million people.
While we may be years away from a cure, the disease can be managed—with or without insurance. I know because I managed it for ten years while I was homeless. It can be done.
If you’ve been diagnoses with type two diabetes, or you think you may be at risk for it, I urge you to seek help. There are free or low-cost medical centers in almost every major city in America. If you need help, please email me and I will help as best as I can.
Until we can cure it, management and prevention may be our best weapons.
Thanks for reading.
(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC
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