Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa!

Sometimes I simply can't believe myself. My body continues to respond very well to the medication. My 14 day average is now 110! I have not needed to take any Regular insulin during the day and have begun to slowly decrease the amount of Lantus insulin (long acting) that I take at night - right now at 34 units. (Remember the doc thought I would need well over 50 units a night) I haven't even gotten to the full dose of the glucophage yet as it takes time to get one's body used to the drug.

I am not feeling particularly deprived with what I'm eating. I've even began to put sugar back into my coffee again, albeit a smaller amount. I am beginning to take walks, but by no means daily, and, yet, my pants are beginning to loosen up a bit. I'm no longer out of breath by the time I get to my office in the morning.

So what is wrong with this picture you may ask? I am feeling guilty. Just when you least expect it, the guilt starts to creep back in. I'm feeling guilty because I feel like this is too easy. I started to blog about this to share my experiences and now I feel a bit like a fraud because it's only three weeks into this thing and my response has been phenomenal. I am so neurotic - I just can't believe myself.

Yes, I am completely aware of how silly this is. Once again, I'm not sharing this for strokes, but thank you anyway for all the love, prayers, and concern. I am aware that much of what I suspected appears to be proving true. For example, this was a very early diagnosis thanks to my body's unusual response to the glucose toxicity (I still think it might also have been that huge batch of homemade pierogis that I polished off the weekend before my peak sugar--so perhaps I have to thank pierogis for my early diagnosis). I was well aware that my diet was not the typical heavy sugar/heavy carb diet that typically leads up to diabetes. I also knew that my couch potato lifestyle was my main risk factor in conjunction with my size and that if I started moving, the natural response to exercise might help kick my pancreas back into gear.

Guilt is a very bizarre emotional response. However, I once shared with my psychiatrist some of the thoughts that I was having that I was finding a bit scary. What he said was so important for my continued well being. The gyst of it was this - deep down my psyche wants me to feel bad. In order to accomplish that, in my case, my psyche has to get very clever. In order to short circuit my very rational brain that has done a phenomenal job of pushing aside most typical attacks - I know I am a good person, I know I am a good friend, I know I am a good brother...it put these thoughts into my head that I know are unacceptable. Are you following this?

Take, for example, suicidal ideation. The thoughts creep in - not because I really want to end things but because my intellectual brain will start to say, "Hey, buddy, you must be really f*cked up to be thinking that!," and then I start to feel bad (see original point - my psyche wants me to feel bad). Therefore, I will push through this "guilt" I'm having as yet another battle with my psyche.

I refuse to feel badly about this - I choose to celebrate my success and choose to be thankful that due to circumstances and good fortune my body is responding well to the medicine and my deliberate treatment program that I am responsible for enacting. My heart does go out to those folks out there who are doing everything correctly and still struggling with their illness. However, there sh*t is theirs and my sh*t is mine and there's no point in mingling the two just to make my psyche satisfied.

Peace all.