Sugar is sweet, and so is my blood...

Hallowe'en is always a tough event for me...I grew up like other kids in the fifties eating anything with sugar in it because I didn't know any better...My Mom and Grandmama cooked and baked with sugar, and the only admonition I ever got was, "Don't eat too many sweets because it'll spoil your appetite"...

Thirty years ago I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and even then I didn't take it too seriously because I still felt OK, and I had to get on with life anyway...The only part of the diet the doctor put me on that I paid any attention to, was cutting out the obvious sugars...I got used to Diet Dr Pepper and the other sugar-free products, but didn't pay attention to foods that become sugars in the body...

I worked hard for a living, and needed energy so starches and carbohydrates provided that...I figured hard work was the same as exercise, so I talked myself out of joining a gym, or riding a bike in the evening; I was too tired when I got home from two jobs anyway...

In the meantime, all the fast food I binged on when I got those unexplained sudden hungry spells, turned into sugar making me fat, lazy and tired when I got home...My pancreas couldn't produce enough insulin to get rid of it fast enough, so it just accumulated in my blood until it burned away...The only time my blood glucose level got checked was when the doctor did it, and I could only afford that once or twice a year...

I kept getting sicker without knowing it because I didn't understand the seriousness of the disease...My doctor told me when he diagnosed it that the one thing absolutely guaranteed about diabetes is that if I live long enough, I'll die from it...The trick is in living long enough for that to happen...I always figured something else would kill me first, so I didn't bother doing the little things that might make growing older more comfortable...

I started giving in to my sweet tooth with so-called sugar-free pies and cakes, even knowing in the back of my head that the carbs become sugar that my pancreas can't get rid of...I waited too long to eat every day, and when I did eat, I ate far too much...Repairing broken cars and selling guns didn't work the right muscle groups even though I seemed to be active, causing the sugar to pile up in my blood...I thought I was tired all the time because I worked so much, and I was getting older anyway...

Today, due to poor choices in my selections with whom I associated myself both personally and professionally, my financial situation does not allow for proper medical care, or adequate health insurance, leaving me to get by on what doctors and medicines I can afford to prolong life a little longer...I don't look for a scapegoat since I bear the responsibility myself in the end...

Last night as the trick-or-treaters came knocking at my door, I doled out the bags of Peanut M&M's that I can no longer have, knowing a lecture and a fresh apple would have been wasted on them anyway...I can only hope a few of them looked at the tired old man passing out the candy, and decided they didn't want to be him in the next few decades...

Quality of life never amounts to more than the effort you're willing to put into it...As the old joke goes, if I had known I would live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself...

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