Pre-Existing Conditions

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, before my latest health scare.  I'm tired of it, I tell you. I wound up in the ICU with extremely high blood sugars.  I called 911 because I felt so poorly and knew I could not drive myself to the ER.  After lots of testing and IV drips of various liquids, turns out I had bacterial pneumonia.  This infection is what increased my blood sugars to dangerous levels.  This is one reason why I get all my vaccines and stay away from people who are sick.  I'm home now on oxygen.  No telling when I'll get off of it, but I need it even when I am sitting quietly.  I really need it when I empty the dishwasher or fix a meal.  Speaking of which, I can't use my gas appliances while there's all this oxygen in the house.  I'm getting creative with the microwave, and ordering a lot of delivery.  I've been craving sushi. Perhaps my body is telling me I need more omega-3?

Here is the litany I began before....

I did not win the health lottery.  Born prematurely, I had lung issues from the get go.  Thanks to modern medicine and the good care of my parents, I survived early and critical asthma.  It forced me to sit out various activities. I have memories of being five years old, watching the kids playing outside, knowing that I could not join them.  These were the days before inhaled steroids and albuterol rescue inhalers.  A big bowl of bowling water with Vics Vapo Rub was the treatment.  Nights in the hospital in an oxygen tent.  Miraculously, somewhere around my seventh year my health stabilised for some unknown reason and it wasn't until I was fifteen that my asthma kicked in again.  My parents took me for allergy tests, and I tested positive for just about everything.  I started on shots which lasted for a couple of years.  Despite this, I was active as a teen, and never considered myself 'sickly.' 

My frequent use of albuterol (inhaled) eventually led to heart rhythm problems in my early sixties.  A smart doc put me on an inhaled steroid and that did the trick.  My use of albuterol was reduced by 99 percent. I use it so infrequently now that I don't carry it in my bag when going out.  In the past, I would never be without it.

In my twenties I was chronically and severely depressed.  The medications back then were worse that the illness, so after trying two or three, I gave up.  This made my world exceptionally small and both my husband and I suffered greatly as a result.  I was lacklustre and slept a lot.  I cried a lot.  My illnesses ruined vacations for us.

When I was pregnant and thirty years old, I developed gestational diabetes.  Discovered near the end of my pregnancy, it was treated without insulin.  I watched my carbohydrate intake.  Both the asthma and the diabetes impacted my labor: I had a severe asthma attack and was given drugs to help.  They were essentially speed (adrenaline).  Because of the attack, I went into early labor but the use of stimulants hampered the contractions.  Three days of labor later, I delivered early: a very fat little cherub.  Doc said it was good that I delivered early, as the diabetes was responsible for putting a lot of weight on the baby.  Though born early, she had good lungs (hallelujah).  She also had severe jaundice which almost required a blood transfusion.  We got through it all.

Inserted later, after reviewing.  I can't believe I left out the biggest clunker of all: type 1 diabetes.  What a Freudian slip.  At 35 I got very sick.  Lost a lot of weight, was thirsty all the time and of course peeing all the time.  A trip to the doc and a pee test determined I had diabetes.  At the time we assumed it was type 2 since I was well into adulthood.  I was assigned an endocrinologist who was a pretty sour fellow and we went through the protocols.  It was daunting: so much to learn just to take care of myself daily.  Finger sticks (ouch) and gel pacts for low blood sugar.  I was taking oral medications at the time and my doc was happy with my progress.  At one point he said, "I wish all my patients were as diligent as you."  After a year, however, my sugars went up and again I became very sick.  Testing revealed I had no more insulin at all.  Wasn't making it, wasn't using it.  I was taught how to use and inject insulin several times each day.  This disease impacts everything in my life, and has done so for 32 years.  I am used to the daily care and consideration, and modern devices like a CGM and insulin pump do make life easier.

The health chronicles really kicked into high gear in my late fifties when I was hospitalised multiple times in a short period with completely bizarre and undiagnosed symptoms.  I was never given an explanation, and of course some doctors concluded immediately and without basis that it must be diabetes related.  No doubt this was because my blood sugars shot up to dangerous levels while my blood pressure tanked.  Close to death multiple times, I came to think of death as an inevitable relief from this cycle of illness.  These episodes scared the hell out of all who knew me, but I was too exhausted to feel such fear.

Due to my health, I was able to receive social security disability.  The episodes disappeared as mysteriously as they had come, but I lived with the reality that they could return at any time.

Two years ago, I had gastric by-pass surgery.  I was looking forward to losing weight and improving my health.  Unfortunately, I developed an ulcer at the suture site which went undiagnosed despite my repeated complaints to my surgeon.  I ended up being taken to the hospital, bleeding out, and immediately going into open stomach surgery.  I lost a lot of blood.  A lot.  My by-pass surgery had to be reversed.  I had lost 45 lbs in two months because, for most of that time, I could not eat anything.  Protein drinks made me sick.  It was a brutal way to lose weight. Two years later, all the weight came back on.

I survived the pandemic without coming down with Covid-19. Probably because I was very careful and stayed home except for solitary walks with my dog.  I don't go to crowded places because I can't stand crowds.  I didn't fly anywhere.  I had my vaccines as soon as they were available.  Plain dumb luck or following good protocols?

Ever since that stomach surgery 2.5 years ago,  I've never felt right again.  My doc and I have been working on why this might be so, and she's ordered an array of blood work.  The thing is: I have no energy.  Pushing myself only makes it worse.  She thinks it might be akin to chronic fatigue.  

Despite my lack of energy, I did make several trips since spring this year.  I paced myself and ordered wheelchair service at the airports.  I was able to visit friends, and attend a friend's memorial service in Washington D.C.  It was very taxing, but I did it and I felt proud that I did.  They were slow-moving trips with lots of rest, but I managed it and for that I am grateful.

My adult daughter is inured to my health emergencies, including my stays in ICU. She had to deal with my diabetic emergencies all of her life.  She had to get me juice and make me a sandwich to recover from low blood sugar.  She saw me emotionally snap while in the middle of it.  This didn't occur often, but it did happen.  If the juice wasn't coming fast even.  If my blood sugars were low enough that I was sweating, shaking and running hot and cold like a fever.

Speaking of my daughter, being pregnant with her was one of the healthiest periods of my life.  My body worked well.  I breastfed with no complications and kept it up until she weaned herself around her first birthday.  I love feeding her.  I loved that my body could do this.  I had no postpartum depression - I felt great.

There were many periods of great health: when I was a teenager and into my twenties,  I enjoyed backpacking.  I climbed mountains before dawn to watch the sun rise.  I swam in clear cold rivers and enjoyed the company of friends around camp fires. I built rudimentary furniture when I was too poor to purchase the real thing.  I learned how to repair cars, and fix plumbing problems.  I marched in political protests and had a short but wonderful career on a public radio station.  My voice went out into the world on the airwaves, as did the music I chose to play.

I guess this is all to say that even though I have been beset with various illnesses over the course of my life, I have lived a good one.  I pick myself up, dust myself off and get on with it.  Really, what else is there to do?