I sat in the Diabetic Educator’s office today looking at illustrations of diabetic retinopathy, trying to understand what she was saying in light of my recent vision changes. As I heard Jean explain how the breaking down of blood vessels caused by uncontrolled sugar in the bloodstream happens in other organs too, most notably the kidneys, my eyes welled up as I thought of my dad who died of kidney failure a few years ago.

My father was sick most of my life. Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of him screaming in pain with kidney stones when I was very young and waiting in the car with my brother and grandfather while my mother visited dad in the hospital during one of his many stays. At 38 daddy had his first open heart surgery (there would be 2 more). In his 50’s he lost his bladder to cancer and a kidney to chronic infection. In his late 50’s or early 60’s he developed type 2 diabetes and passed away at 70 when his remaining kidney failed. There were lots of other surgeries and struggles along the way.

In some ways, dad’s body was a lemon – things just went wrong. Kidney stones nor the heart attack at 38 were foreseeable. Neither was cancer – some things just happen and I get that. There were things he DID have some power over though – the kidney could have been saved had he not ignored blood in his urine for so many months. The subsequent heart surgeries may not have been necessary if he had ever been willing to make the lifestyle changes the doctors recommended. For the most part my father just thought the doctors should be able to fix everything. He never really saw that he had any responsibility to care for his own body.

His cardiologist called me one afternoon when dad was in his early 60’s. He said, “Pam, your dad cussed me a blue streak this morning when we talked about diet and exercise for the umpteenth time. I’ve been thinking about it and he’s right. We keep telling him the same thing over and over and he has basically said he’s not going to do it. All we’re doing is wasting our time and aggravating him. Here’s what I’m going to do. There aren’t going to be any more surgeries. From now on when he comes in for his annual visit, I’m going to monitor his status, maintain/adjust his medications and tell him he’s doing well. That’s what he wants to hear and, given the fact that he isn’t willing to make changes, he is doing as well as can be expected.”

Sure enough, dad called me after every annual visit to tell me everything was good. He was quite proud of the fact that he had finally gotten them to stop nagging him and he was doing okay in spite of not significantly changing anything. Dad was happy, I understood where we really were and I think Dr’s conscience was good – it was a win/win for everyone.

Except that it wasn’t really. He cheated himself and the people who loved him in so many ways.

Problem was, his heart health wasn’t the only thing my dad didn’t want to take responsibility for. As he got older he pretty much had the same attitude about relationships, bills and his other health issues. His multiple divorces and poor credit rating were the result of doing only what he wanted to do. His retirement income more than met his needs, but why pay bills when you can drive to Vegas?

I have spent much of my life deliberately trying to at least make different mistakes than my parents made. Don’t we all? Find a new pitfall but don’t do the thing you so resented your parents for!  And yet as I sat in the Nurse Practitioner’s office today listening to her describe the insidious progression of diabetes, I realized I’ve done exactly as my father did. I ignored my family history. I carried glucose tabs in my purse and self-treated hypoclycemic episodes for decades, never once mentioning them to my physician. I ate candy and pasta and all the sugar I could find, either blaming those cravings on menopause or simply giving myself permission to misbehave.

I wasn’t uneducated. I knew the warning signs…I just didn’t want to know the truth. Like my dad, I wanted to believe that if I ignored my symptoms long enough, they would go away. That didn’t work for him and it hasn’t work for me.

Denial tries to quiet our conscience and yet, God in His infinite love, keeps calling out truth. I finally listened to His voice over the shouts of denial and asked my doctor for an A1C this year – the blood test that reports blood glucose levels over a 3 month period.  It came back slightly elevated – prediabetes, she said. She sent me to the Diabetes Educator who is helping me set goals and begin to understand what this disease is and what I can do to slow the damage. The drastic changes I am struggling to make will have to stay in effect for the rest of my life.

I feel frustrated by how hard this is.
Going to the gym, meal planning, cooking, tracking everything I eat, making sure I get enough steps in every day – just trying to be compliant seems like an impossible task some days. I’m using all the tools I can. My FitBit activity/sleep monitor with its food log and reporting have been a big help as has Miss Jean, the 75 year old nurse practitioner who serves as my diabetic educator and accountability partner. Taking care of myself is taking up way too much of my time and Paul & I’s conversations though.

I feel cheated.
I’ve worked out off and on for several years. I long ago stopped drinking sodas and eating fried foods. I like vegetables and have never been a huge carnivore. There were some healthy things going on in my lifestyle, in spite of my sweet tooth and wanton carb loading. Yes, I had gained back about ½ of the 70lbs I lost 10 years ago but at 53 I looked around and still felt pretty good about myself. I didn’t expect to look or feel 25 at this point so the belly bulge and tiredness just seemed to be part of getting older. So many others, even in my family, have been more overweight and less active and seemed to get away with it.

Most of all I feel guilty.
I was given the incredible gift of good health and I took it for granted, daring my body to fail. I ignored the available information on diabetes as well as the signals my own body was sending. The very thing I resented most in my dad has become glaringly apparent in my own life.

And how does God feel about this?
Truth is I am just now allowing His love in past the denial, the anger and the guilt. I know His mercies are new every morning; that Christ’s blood was shed to cover these very sins. Regardless of these truths, I’m back to a point of brokenness I haven’t been in for a very long time. That place where all the ugliness surrounds me as I sit on the floor in the midst of yet another mess I’ve made. Somehow, that may be the point of it all.

Type 2 diabetes is not curable but it is preventable, maybe even still for me. A commitment to weight loss, meal planning and exercise may well help delay the onset. Miss Jean says the results of my next A1C will tell a lot in terms of whether I’ll be able to manage this on my own or will need help from medication.

It’s the “on my own” part of that prognosis that I know isn’t possible. The first four weeks after my diagnosis I made better food choices, went to the gym more often and did what seemed logical to me. Then I met Miss Jean and for the next 3 weeks I was absolutely faithful to a 1500 calorie diet, 4 workouts a week and getting enough rest. When I weighed in today, I had lost .1 ounce – yes, you read that right, 1/10 of one ounce – after all that work! As I looked at those photos in her office and thought of my dad, I was faced with the very real consequences of unmanaged blood sugar, knowing my very best efforts had not amounted to even an ounce of progress.

It’s overwhelming and the truth is I can’t do this on my own, it’s just too much.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Phil 4:13).  As I sit in the ruin of my own choices, I can feel God’s touch. The tears in my eyes as I type these words are evidence that in spite of my complacency toward Him, His love is reaching through the angst, the frustration, the guilt and touches the brokenness and fear that lie at the core of it all. In Christ there is healing, absolutely – inside and out. Regardless of all the times God has shown up BIG in my life, once again I am in desperate need of both. It’s a place that’s uncomfortable but exactly where I need to be.

Psalm 59:16 But as for me, I will sing each morning about your power and mercy. For you have been my high tower of refuge, a place of safety in the day of my distress.