Discouraging Day

 Deb asked a question that made me stop and think. "Has it been the two years you projected for the new house?" I looked back through my posts, and found that Carrot Top, aka Johnny began pouring our basement June 1st of 2023. So. Yes, it has been two years. Two years, 1 month and 2 days to be precise. It seems like such a long time ago, and I am grateful this project is winding down. We have the next big project which is the attic, and then it needs to be sided this summer, which can wait until we are moved into it to get done. 

We've been cleaning up around the outside of the house now that the house is no longer a construction zone. William was a big help with that today, neatly stacking some wood. He also helped put up some lattice on the raised beds for the cucumbers. I've never done that before, but I see other people doing it, and it will save garden space if the vines are going up instead of sprawling out. 

I am discouraged today. I've been working very hard on lifestyle changes. Part of that has been paying close attention to what I eat. Part of it has been walking faithfully. It is frustrating to me that my healthcare provider is really, really pushing the metformin. My A1C was 6.4, which is prediabetic levels. That really galvanized me into making those lifestyle changes. My A1C dropped to 6 which made me feel better. Much to my surprise, I still received a phone call. "The doctor has reviewed your test results and wants to put you on Metformin."

I told her that according to NIH, themselves, they do not recommend treating prediabetes with metformin. They encourage healthy eating and exercise and watching the numbers carefully to see if the levels respond to that. There was some polite disagreement. In the end, I refused to medicate.

My next well check? They wanted to send me to a podiatrist for a diabetic foot evaluation. I was starting to get frustrated. I said, "I am not diabetic. I am prediabetic, and after three months of exercise and good eating, I've reduced my A1C by .4. So no. We're not doing the foot doctor."

Today, I had another A1C test to monitor the situation. I walked to the appointment, which was a mile and a half. I was feeling pretty confident about the whole thing. I've lost 25 pounds now since making the big changes back in December, so I was pleased with that. Surely, surely, all my hard work would pay off. 

I looked at my A1C results just now. 6.1. How disappointing! Mostly because I know I will have to argue with the doctor again, and I hate that. 

 So.

That's my day.

America has had even a worse day. I'm not going to go into it. 

But here are some words of wisdom from Pete Buttigieg:

"The thing I would like for Americans to feel is that it is the very pain of this moment that signals how important it is. All the moments in history that we study, admire and romanticize were pretty brutal to be in the middle of and that's what makes it so interesting. For better or worse, we are in one of those now and that should propel us to think more originally as things get burned down around us - about what we would build instead." 

(Thanks to Jackie for passing that along to me. If ever was a day that I needed to read an encouraging word, this is that day.)