My secret life .... at least it seems so

About 4 years, I thought I would do the proper thing and get a physical after my 50th birthday. Well, sure enough, a couple days later I was diagnosed with Type 2. I was between overweight and obese and thought I was in good shape, ate well, exercised and had a good home life so I really thought I only had to make minor changes and everything would be fine. Sure I switched to Lite beer and tried to each smaller portions and went for a 30 min walk occasionally, but I guess it wasn’t enough. Last summer (year 3) after riding the roller coaster HA1c ride between 6.5 and 7.8 I had enough, got pissed off. I made a commitment to face this monster streaming through my veins and get some control. Since then I am down 30 lbs, walk over an hour a day, ride my bike on sunny days for 10-30 miles, eat a voracious amount of veg, eat almost NO starches (bread, rice, potatoes) and my HA1c is below 6.5 hoping for a sub 6 by the end of the month.

Through all of this, I feel like I live this secret life. Sure my wife and kids, parents and siblings know I have diabetes (usually I get the, “How is, uh, you know, your condition?”); I even told my close friend about a year ago, in fact, there was a student of mine who was diagnosed with Type 1 three months before her High School Graduation, so when consoling her I told her that I was diabetic and tried to give her some encouraging words. But that is it, I am not sure how to break it to my colleagues, students, friends or neighbors. I spend a couple hours a day reading about the disease and occasionally responding to forums when I have something to say. It is just not something that comes up in conversation. “Yea, how about that game last night, it was great. Oh, by the way, I am a diabetic.” or “Today, class, we are going to learn about quadratic equations, now take out your calculators whilst I check my blood glucose.” I feel like I have dug a deep rut and live in it. At the same time, I do not want people to walk on egg shells watching everything that comes near my mouth to be sure I don’t eat any of that sugar poison. I would be interested to hear how others deal with it. Should I buy an “I’M A DIABETIC!” T-shirt and stand on a soap-box? (Do they make soap boxes anymore?)

You definitely don’t want to incur the wrath of the Food Police! LOL

Congratulations on making the changes that are working for you. It’s not an easy thing to do, but clearly you did it. Good on you!!!

You’ll find the right time and opportunity to tell people you want to tell. Just make sure you tell them you are managing it really well! (Might make Food Police think twice!)