I'm still here. This has sat, long forgotten.
My diabetes got worse, much worse. I started taking insulin just because it seemed so hopeless. I started at 10 units per day, and I saw a huge improvement. A little more than a year later I was taking close to 300 units a day and spiraling out of control in terms of my health. I've seen it happen to other people. They crash hard and nothing can save them. I had my recent scare where I almost lost a foot to botulism and staph, my blood pressure was at a place I called unsurvivable, So I stopped taking insulin, and the six other pills I took for diabetes as well.
I also buckled down and really changed how I eat. I had been up at almost 300 pounds, with a BMI that was just barely shy of 40, the magic BMI number that changes from obese to the unofficial morbidly obese. My A1C hadn't returned to the days of being in the high teens, but it was on a steady and strong upward trend.
Today I weighed 222 pounds. I estimate my A1C to be about 7, and estimate that it has been falling steadily since May. My blood pressure was high when I went to the ER last week for a scratched eyeball and puss-oozing eye infection, but I had reasons for it to be high. I'll get an A1C test within a month or so, but over the past year I've gotten good enough at calculating my A1C that I usually match the numbers the doctor gives me from a blood test.
I hiked close to Chupadera peak a couple of weeks ago, but there was lightning and thunder, so I didn't go up it. I meant to go hiking in the mountains over the weekend, but my back injury was making itself known again, so I didn't do anything in the hopes of avoiding another spasm in it. After watching Miranda In the Wild, an REI employee who made a series of terrible videos for REI that eventually turned into a show of her own where she was allowed to have a personality, I really want to hike 30 miles. She hiked 30 miles on her 30th birthday. I'm about to be 51, and I'm not going to try and hike 51 miles. But half of 51 would be doable, and is close to 30. So I need to get out more. I still want to be at Turkey Creek for my birthday, so it would be a hike in the Gila, which from Turkey Creek, means uphill a lot, but an easy downhill back to the springs. I'm not sure I'll achieve it though. But the goal of a thirty mile hike this calendar year, even if not on my birthday, is something I suspect I could pull off if I try hard.
