If I
remember correctly it was a beautiful Wednesday afternoon in August 2007 and I
had my regular quarterly appointment to see my endocrinologist at the Joslin
Clinic (http://www.joslin.org/) in Boston, which meant that
I would have to catch the green line from work and then walk about 5 blocks. For those that don’t know I was diagnosed as
Type II Diabetic back in 1999 while living in Denver,
so moving to Boston
gave me the opportunity to go to the best clinic for Diabetes in the world. The appointment went as normal as could be,
considering I had a very serious disease and weighed in at close to 339 lbs. I saw my Doctor, who pushed, prodded, &
probed as can be expected, along with have the correct amount of blood taken
from my veins so to run the numerous blood tests (A1C, cholesterol, protein,
lipids, and others as well) that are needed to make sure my body was working
the way I needed it to be working. Along
with all of the typical doctor/patient stuff my doctor was always asking me
questions about; how I felt the direction my health was going, what activities
I had been up to, what have I eat/drink/smoke regularly, among other
things. I was used to these questions by
now since I had been coming to the clinic for over 9 months now, but it had
taken me some time to get used to them as most of us aren’t used to a doctor
spending much time with us when we come see them. Just as I felt this was going in the typical
fashion of appointments he asked me a question that I now realize changed my
life…”How
long do you want to live?” He
asked me. Before I could answer he
started to speak again and said “Because at this rate you are going to be an
athletic, obese, active man that is going to die young from complications
brought on by your diabetes. You go to a
gym, walk, hike, ski, bike, fish, but your A1C is too high and you weigh at
least 100 lbs more then you need to manage your diabetes with any kind of
success.” Now some people may
think he was mean, or had bad bed side manners, but not me…He made me save my
life that day!
….to be
continued
