Inescapable Diabetic Weakness and Tiredness

    This morning, I awoke and felt like maybe I should not have. I was extremely tired, weak and achy. I was more tired than I can ever remember being. I had a full night’s sleep and yet my body ached, my brain reeled with depression over this event and I just felt like I never felt before. I was tired in ways I could not have conceived months before this.

    I did an Internet search to look for “tiredness Diabetes” and got a lot of material to read. I read a number of interesting articles, watched some videos and thought about what I’m going to do when I can no longer work due to this disease. My job would be considered as a high stress job. If I am so tired and weak that I can’t think straight, then I’m not going to be effective or successful at my job.  So what options do I have? What are the right options for me? 

 Decided to do two things:

1)      Consult an attorney to determine what options I have to have myself declared “disabled”. That would allow me to get benefits which I’ve been paying into my entire life. I’m not sure what’s possible and will blog about this as things develop.

2)      Consult my doctor. I took three Ibuprofen tablets and felt somewhat better for about two hours. I know I can’t keep doing that every couple of hours for the rest of my life!  I’ll explore what the doctor has to offer and then blog about it as things develop.

If there is anyone out there with some advice about how to deal with this, I’d appreciate hearing from you. Just comment on this post. I’m pretty depressed about this because if I understand what is going on in my body, it can’t get energy out of the food I eat and so I feel tired because it is pulling energy from my muscles and fat stores. So… I almost wish I was fatter!? What happens when I run out of the accumulated energy in my body?  What does the body do then?  My head hurts.

90 Days with Diabetes

For as long I can remember, I’ve always weighed about two-hundred and fifty pounds and stood six foot two inches tall. My weight has never fluctuated much over the years and I've always eaten fresh food and good food. Annual medical checkups were obligatory and completed without much fanfare or issue. That is until this year…

My annual checkup was pretty much standard fare. They weighed me, hit my knees with a rubber mallet, and so on and so forth. However, this time, near the end, the doctor said “I just want you to know you’re pre-diabetic.”  He said it very mater-of-factly and like it was no big deal. I smiled and said “Okay, thanks for letting me know,” and he didn’t pursue it any further. That was that and the conversation ended. I left with advice that my cholesterol was within normal ranges, my high blood pressure was under control and I was pre-diabetic. As I was leaving, I remember telling myself that I could just cut out on eating the sweets that I treated myself too once in awhile and that should be fine.  Those were really the only sugars I ate.   

True to my word. I did indeed cut out the sweets. I stopped buying any type of pastry, pies, cakes or doughnuts at all. I never really had a sweet tooth and so these little extra indulgences were easy to eliminate. I didn’t really need em’ anyway and never had them that often anyway. I never drank anything but diet soft drinks, never used sugar in my coffee and never chewed anything but sugarless gum.

Looking back; what I didn’t understand, was that the term “pre-diabetic” MEANS something specific within the medical community. It means that you have passed a threshold as far as the glucose in your blood. It means specifically that the glucose level has risen above a pre-defined threshold. The ability of your body to get energy from sugar and deal with glucose in your blood is getting more difficult.  I also understood nearly nothing about "carbs."

 

In addition to my annual medical assessment, I always schedule an annual Optometric visit. A few weeks after my annual medical checkup it was time for the eye examination. This year my “eye doctor” had a new gizmo. It is a device which takes a picture of your inner eye. I thought it was pretty cool and completed the test becasue she said it would help her in her diagnosis. It was an easy test to complete, and did help her, but it really helped me because as an outcome of that test my Optometrist discovered a medical condition and advised me to consult my doctor.

 

A week later, I was again sitting in my doctor’s office… The doctor checked me over, and I took a blood test. Several days later, she shared the results which were that that my H1AC number was above a 7 which means that I was now officially “a diabetic” with Type2.   I was shocked. Just a month earlier the doctor told me I was pre-diabetic and now even though I had cut out sweets, I was a Diabetic!  I was also completely concerned because my Grandmother died from Diabetes. My doctor advised me that she was placing me on a medication called Metformin. I asked if I could just start a diet of some type or eat differently and not take the pill but she said it was important now that I start taking the medication.

That was ninety days ago, in August of 2012, and that was the start of my type 2 diabetes journey. Looking back, I can see now that the symptoms I’d been reporting to my doctor (legs pains and weakness) were actually symptoms that were probably caused by pre-diabetes and yet not one of the doctors I’d seen for the last ten years ever said anything about Diabetes at all.

Having Diabetes means that your cells can no longer effectively use sugar for energy and so your body starts pulling energy from fat stores and muscles. This makes you incredibly tierd and achy all the time. The body must remove the extra sugar (Glucose) in your blood through much more urination. That water loss dries your skin till you itch quite a lot and lastly it also dehydrates you so that your very thirsty.

 

The Kübler-Ross model, commonly known as The Five Stages of Grief, includes denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I never went through any Denial, Anger or Bargaining stages with my Diabetes diagnosis and so I have to alter this model for me. My stages are: Fear, Learning, Commitment, Depression, and Acceptance.  

The Fear stage was that my Grandmother died from Diabetes complications. I never knew the details of what exactly caused her death because I was a kid at the time. My mother told me “It runs in the family;” and now it had me. This causes me great concern.

Learning - Initially I didn’t know anything about Diabetes, and I'm still learning. However, as soon as I had my diagnosis, I started reading everything I could get my hands on related to the disease, its causes, what foods to eat, and not to eat, and so on. I spent eight days away from the office and thinking and reading about this disease. During that time, I designed a diabetic friendly diet for myself which was also healthy for my heart and that would cause me to lose weight.  I’d be happy to send the diet to anyone sending an email request to infinityman@cox.net. I subscribed to a Diabetic Living magazine, bought and read electronic versions of books related to the topic, subscribed to a number of Diabetes related web sites and tried my best to come up to speed with information. I get regular email updates and newsletters. Who knows, they might find a cure!

Commitment – One of the things I had asked my doctor during the meeting where she told me I was Diabetic was if I would need to take insulin or test my blood or anything like that. She advised that I would not need to do any of those things for now except change my diet, take the Metformin, lose weight, &c.  However, being in the Information Technology field I know; the only way to make critical decisions with quality is to have quality data available. The only way to get data about the glucose levels in my blood is to test. So I immediately spent a week or so researching the best testing devices on the market, how to test with accuracy; and then ordered the device, the strips and the lancet device. I learned that it is normal for blood glucose levels to be between 70-130 prior to a meal and two hours after the meal to be as high at 180. It also seems that anything above 144 is considered as “high”.   These are the parameters I am working with and doing everything I can to clearly understand what foods tend to take my glucose levels outside of these thresholds.

Depression – Initially, I really felt like I could beat Diabetes. I could put the disease into remission by doing the right things consistently. What I learned in my reading what that this is not reality. Instead, I learned that my diabetes was coming on for about 10 years. That most people diagnosed as pre-diabetic can only stave off becoming fully diabetic for an average of 2 years. The bottom line is that your body is having a more and more difficult time getting energy from food and effectively dealing with glucose in your blood. This will get progressively worse over time and will be a contributing factor in your death unless a cure is found. This fact must be faced head on and dealt with. It can be a source for depression, but you have to beat that back and accept the disease for what it is.

Acceptance – When all is said and done, one must accept and deal with the fact that you have a disease; through no fault of your own. This is not something you planned and not something you can turn back. It is here, it is real and it has to be managed effectively. Diabetics must:

1)     Watch everything they eat. They must count carbs, watch the nutrition labels and serving sizes and substitute good food items for bad food items. If you screw this up, you stand a good chance of having your feet amputated or other really nasty things (i.e. like eyesight problems, kidney failure) to deal with. It’s not a nice-to-have or something you can follow half-heatedly; but rather a complete necessity for your life and wellbeing. You have to lose weight and get your weight to a level prescribed by the medical professional your working with.  

2)     Watch their hands and feet. Many diabetics experience degrees of neuropathy. This is the tingling and loss of sensation in your hands and feet. Cuts and abrasions and wounds no longer heal as quickly and you don’t even feel them sometimes. There is a huge risk of infection. You must inspect and protect your feet and effectively deal with any wounds. You need to pay attention to this daily and get to the doctor to discuss if there is a wound that is not looking right or healing properly.

3)     Test our blood and record the results. I have two Apps on my smartphone. Each links to a web site so there’s a backup in case anything happens to my phone.

a.     I use the first to record everything I eat. It has a bar scanner and I can scan anything to get exact portions and nutritional information. It tells me how many carbs, calories, fat and other nutritional elements. This way, I can see a clear correlation between what I put in my mouth and my weight and my blood glucose levels.  

b.     The second is an app used to record glucose levels. I test just before meals and two hours after. I test up to six times a day. Sometimes less and sometimes more. I use this data to maintain a spreadsheet of my blood glucose levels; which is useful for discussions with my doctor and for my own understanding of the disease and how it might be progressing. It will get worse over time, so something I eat today that my body can deal with, might not impact my body in the same way in the future. One has to test and record the results in order to be empowered with enough information to make the right decisions.

Ninety days after diagnoses and I now weigh two-hundred and thirty pounds. My goal is 200 which I’ll most likely reach mid-year 2013. Right now, I consume 1500 or fewer calories per day. I’ll keep that up until I reach my goal weight and will then gradually increase the number of calories until I achieve stasis – (I don’t gain or lose weight). There is so much to learn and I'll blog more as I learn and experience more over time.

If you’d like to contact me to discuss or for additional information, send email to infinityman@cox.net.   

Quotes - Never Truer Than At This Moment In our History

A government can't control the economy without controlling people. Our founding fathers knew that when a government sets out to do that, they must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose..

Aside from its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private economy…

The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so….

Our natural unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government and freedom has never been so fragile and so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.

—Abraham Lincoln, to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838

We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.

We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them—they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to up-rear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; ’tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, un-decayed by the lapse of time, and un-torn by usurpation—to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.

How, then, shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a Trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

It's time to clean our houses!

When injustice becomes law; resistence becomes duty!

Researching Common Surnames

I was recently contacted by an individual wanting to sponsor research on their family with a surname of Miller. I’ve done a fair amount of planning and research on common surnames and thought I’d write about how finding the right information for a family with a very common surname requires different research methods.

First of all, you have to establish that the surname your performing research on is a common surname. Names like Smith, O’Brien and Miller are definitely common. You might go to your favorite search engine and search for “most common surnames” which will give you a variety of web sites which convey the most common surnames.

I use another quick method. I just surf to my favorite genealogical search engine and enter the surname to search one of the U.S. Federal census. Almost any year will do, but for the purpose of esstablishing surname commonness, I like to start with 1880. If you get like two million results from your search, you most likely have a common surname, and then my friend.. the rules change. Let’s say the family you’re looking for is one Abraham Miller who has a wife who’s name is Mary. Doing a search for this family can easily result in hundreds of resultant families with the exact same given names.

When you have a surname that is not common, it’s fairly easy to find your target family. One can fairly quickly identify the correct family using the normal mthods – looking at the children’s name, their ages, the location they’re living in, the parents ages and birth locations and so on.. However, when you have a very common surname, one must look additionally at middle names, the street and address the family lives at, the occupation, where the parents of the individuals were born as well as other factors based on what is known of the ancestor your searching for.

I like to create a table, and then take all the candidates who are close matches and evaluate each based on what we actually know about the indivduals in the family. If we know the birth year, then that becomes an attribute. If we know the occupation that becomes an attirbute. Once you have all the attributes for evaluting each record, you simply place a checkmark into each attribute that is true. You can also use a number. While there can be exceptions, the record having the most checkmarks or the highest numeric score is generally the best fit.

Once you get a “best fit” family for a given census year, the next step is to search another census to find the same family. What you’re trying to deterime is when the family arrived in the area they’re living in and how long they remianed there. Once you can do that, you can then take a look at other records to help validate that your target family is indeed the family you’re looking for. Other records, might include newspapers, city directories, voter registrations, probate records and so on. Also, the longer a family is in a particular area, the more likely they are to be written up in the local newspaper or in a book detailing the history of the county.

I hope this helps you with you search. You’ll need to take more time and dig deeper to successfully research a family with a common surname in order to validate continually that the records you’re looking at are indeed for the family you’re interested in.

Third Time’s the Charm

Sometimes it takes a few times before something sinks in and becomes ingrained as a part of one’s research methodology. These learned behaviors have to be experienced – for some of us more than once.

While searching for my GG-Grandfather Isaac Preston, I was unable to find him in the 1850 U.S. Federal Census record. The family had been in Ohio circa 1820s-1840s and subsequently migrated to Illinois. I finally found a biography of one of the family members which indicated they migrated to Iowa for a few years. Working with the local Genealogical Society in Lee County, I found that my GG-Grandfather had died on the migration to Iowa and that his widow, Sarah Preston had remarried to one Robert McNair. Finally, after years of searching, I found the family in the 1850 census record with my GG-Grandfather listed not only as a female, but also as Isaac McNair! I was so elated when I found him; vowing to remember that sometimes, people’s surnames were changed when mother remarried.

A customer engaged us to find her ancestry. She knew the family lived in San Francisco and some of the names of her ancestors, but nothing more. Her surname was Campbell. Her GGGrandmother’s name was Josephine. In addition to Ralph; Josephine had also given birth to Ralph’s brother Robert and sister Fern. She also knew that Josephine had been married upwards of seven times.

We almost immediately found a California Death record for her Grandfather Ralph Campbell which listed the date he died, as well as the date his was born (August 8, 1909) along with his Mother’s maiden name which was listed as Burdick.

Searching the census record, we found a record for Josephine Burdick, who was born in Illinois. The family had migrated to Iowa and on to California. We found her as the wife of William Campbell in the 1900 Census in Siskiyou County, California. They had just been married (2 years) and had no children.

We could no longer find William Campbell in the 1910 Federal census record, instead finding Josephine, married to Ralph Randall. We knew it was the correct Josephine due to her age, her birth state listed, her indication of where her mother and father were born and the fact that living with her and Ralph Randall were children Robert and Fern Campbell. We also knew from the California Death Record that our Ralph Campbell should have also been with the family in this census because he was born in 1909. Instead, we find a Ralph Randall Jr. who is the right age. Curious! Was our Ralph Campbell really born as Ralph Randall Jr.?

Searching California birth records, we found nothing for Ralph Campbell nor Ralph Randall Jr., but we did find a birth record for one James Randall who was born on August 8th, 1909 to a mother with a surname of Burdick. In obtaining a copy of the birth certificate from Sacramento County, they indicated that this birth was written in a book, and that no other details of the birth exist.

In searching the 1920 Federal census record, we again find our target Josephine and establish her identify by her birth state, her age and the birth states listed for her mother and father. In this record, she is listed as Josephine McNeil, now living in San Francisco, having no husband and with three children living with her - Ralph, Fern and Robert Campbell.

Regarding Ralph Campbell - based on the evidence collected thus far, we have a person, who married and died as Ralph Campbell, and who was listed in the Federal census record as Ralph Randall Jr. in 1910 and who was born officially as James Randall. Oh my! My customer was rightly asking, “Am I a Campbell or a Randall in reality?” Again, I told myself that, “when researching, one must always consider that the surname of the children to change when the mother remarries” – and vowed not to forget that lesson!

A customer recently engaged us to find his Great-Great Grandparents in Iowa. He had been searching for months and could not find his family earlier than the 1900 U.S Federal Census record. He knew his Great Grandfather’s name, but not his parents.

The first thing we did was validate the information he already had; and sure enough, there was our Henry Thomas Mallory in the 1900, 1910 and 1920 census record. He had died in 1923 and so was not in the 1930 record.

Henry Thomas Mallory was a laborer. In two of the three census records, he was listed with his wife and children with his occupation designated as a Laborer or Farm Laborer. In the 1910 U.S. Federal Census record, the enumerator had written “NG 0-0-5” which means his occupation was not given and that he had five unemployed dependents. In all three census records, Mr. Mallory indicated that he was born in Pennsylvania, and that both his mother and father were also.

In his obituary, our Henry Mallory’s family said he was from Pennsylvania, that he had been born in 1840 and that he had migrated into Iowa with his family when he was seven years of age; arriving in Muscatine County; and finally that he’d been married in 1878 and migrated to Howard County after his marriage.

The first Federal census we should find him in is the 1850 U.S. Federal Census or some earlier Iowa State Census record. We focused our efforts at finding him there. We found a lot of Mallorys, but not our Henry so we pressed on to the 1860 Census record and again found nothing, even though we used different spellings of the surname, a Soundex search and different age ranges. Hours were poured into the search fruitlessly.

Finally, he was found in the 1880 U.S. Federal Census with a misspelling of his surname and a different initial for his middle name – he was listed a Henry P. Malorie and was living with his family in Howard County, Iowa.

A search of Civil War records indicated that he and his brother George had served as “substitutes” in the 10th infantry, company A. They had enlisted in 1864 and were mustered out in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1865 as the war ended. They served in the Union’s push to the sea and in marches through the war-torn Carolinas. A look for a Civil War Pension file resulted in nothing other than a pension card with a number on it. This was not pursued further because we didn’t feel that it would lead us to an understanding of who Henry’s parents were; and this was the research objective.

Next we looked through local newspaper records, finding many articles about the family visiting relatives, being sick, falling down, as well as the obituary of Henry’s wife and other family members. While these were valuable clues to the family, they did not contribute further to our knowledge of Henry’s mother and father; nor help in finding Henry in the 1850, 1860 or 1870 Federal census record.

Next, we took every Mallory person found in the 1850-1920 census records and recorded each; along with all of the details contained in each census record onto a spreadsheet. We then determined a probable age range for Henry’s parents given that his obituary indicated a birth year of 1840. Once we had a probable range, we sorted the spreadsheet so that we had every Mallory in Iowa that was born within the appropriate age range. We then further filtered our list so that we only had people within this age range who were born in Pennsylvania. This gave us about 50 candidates for Henry’s parents.

Using these names as our base, we went through biographies contained in published Howard County histories. There were biographies of Samuel Mallory, William Mallory and several others. Using these, we were able to further refine our list by eliminating individuals until we got down to about 25 candidates. This was good, but we still had a lot of candidates and only a few of them seemed like good fits.

Finally, we searched the Iowa State census records; first looking for our Henry and brother George. We found an 1856 State census record that had a Henry and George of the right ages. George was listed as being born in Iowa and this fit what we knew, but the surname for the family was Vandenberg and not Mallory and the Henry listed in this record was enumerated as being born in New York instead of Pennsylvania. The mother’s given name was Freelove, also born in NY. There were no other good candidates found in the state census records and so we looked through county vital records and found that a Freelove Mallory married Oliver Vandenberg in 1850. Wow! This was the smoking gun! Freelove was a Mallory and these boys, listed as George and Henry Vandenberg were in all likelihood George and Henry Mallory!

A search of the 1850 Federal census found the family in our target Iowa County, again listed as Vandenberg boys but each of their middle initials was listed a M. which was not their middle names but we surmised stood instead for Mallory! Finally, the 1860 Federal census record was checked and sure enough, the Vandenberg family was found, with Oliver and Freelove at the head, three other Vandenberg family members who were new children to the couple and finally George and Henry “Vandenberg” listed again with a middle initial of M. We had them! We ended up making contact with both Mallory and Vandenberg descendents in Iowa and providing our customer with the rich tapestry of new found family.

Once again, after this exhausting search, I reminded myself, that many times CHILDREN’S SURNAMES ARE CHANGED WHEN MOTHER REMARRIES!! Hopefully, the third time will be the charm!

Gregory