I went to visit a friend in the hospital today; the first non-family person I met with diabetes.  We’ve been friends, wayward and nearward for a long time now.  Our bands have played shows together since we were teens.  I dated his sister for a few ill-advised years.  I was there feeding him alcohol when he slipped into a diabetic coma.  I was also there to save him when some dumb girl at the party kept insisting on trying to inject him with insulin. (Years ago, not why he’s in the hospital now)

While I’ve been rigorous about my diet, exercise, and general lifestyle since my diagnosis, he has never been so.  He’s taken Metformin on and off, but other than that, hasn’t really made much observable effort toward reducing the impact of the disease.

Today, I found out he was in the hospital, having had part of his foot amputated and some friends and I went to visit him.  All in all he’s in good spirits, but even with insulin and ‘formin, his blood sugar was still at 260.  The nurses didn’t seem to be terribly concerned at that.

At risk of hijacking someone else’s pain, all day I’ve been shaken up.  I know I’ve written about this before but, in spite of the lifestyle differences, today is a very real, very sharp reminder of my future.  Today is a reminder that, no matter how hard I try and how much I sacrifice; the diet, the booze, the time spent in gyms, none of it really matters.  I can stave off the side effects of this disease for a while, I hope, but ultimately this is my future.  If my heart doesn’t kill me first, my toes and feet will fall off, my eyes will cloud and fail, and then my heart will finally give in.

None of us truly knows how we will go, myself included.  But I’ve had a vision of the future, a doom-filled insight.  It’s not pretty, it’s not pleasant, and I’m not looking forward to it a damn bit.

 

I haven’t posted much about exercise stuff recently because, while I’m still seeing a lot of progress, it’s mostly incremental.  My back is defined from top to bottom now and by arms finally have some bulk to them.  I’m getting those awesome wing things on my sides.  My stupid indented chest is actually filling out and getting some hard definition for pretty much the first time ever.

In relation to that, today as I was walking through my room to head for the shower I caught my reflection in profile, in natural posture, and I stopped in my tracks.  I took a step back, re-evaluated.

Yup.

I’m not quite there yet, but I’m almost at a point where my chest projects out further than my stomach.

THIS IS CRAZY.

Even as a little kid I had a bit of a natural gut, and even at my previous peak physical fitness I couldn’t seem to shake the tire.  And at that afore-mentioned peak, my chest was flat, with zero definition.  Today I almost look like my idealized version of a person looks.

I’ll probably never have a totally flat, defined stomach, just because I’ve carried weight on my for so many years, but it’s cool to start seeing some of the lines on the sides and bottom start to define, and the overall bulk disappear.  I’ve always talked about how even though I dress super casual most of the time, I’ve wanted to wear nice suits my whole life.  Problem is suits, and especially dress-shirts, are designed for flat profile.  Skinny guys look good in suits with their shirts tucked in.  Buff guys look kind of brutish, but still good, but guys with guts can’t help but look slovenly with a tucked in shirt.

I would be so far beyond excited if I was able to tuck a dress-shirt in and have it rest in unison with the waistline of my pants.

 

Things in the world suck right now, and my head is messier than I can even begin to describe, even to my “secret” blog that nobody reads.

But this, friends…this is fantastic.  Wish me luck as I work extra hard to push this ‘almost’ into reality.

I made a thing.

This Mayday series I’ve been reading/reviewing is amazing.

Check it out here.

Last night my girlfriend and I went to our favorite restaurant…not just favorite in town but favorite, period. It’s a little home style Japanese place tucked behind a gross chain restaurant in the upper-middle part of town.  It seats a “max” of 22 but more realistically, probably about 15 people.

We don’t go to many restaurants anymore due to my strict diet but they have a few dishes I can have on an occasional basis i.e., it’s still “healthy” compared to most people’s meals, but is still about 5 days worth of salt and fat for me.  When we go it’s kind of a big deal for us.  So when we pulled into the tiny parking lot and saw it mostly full my heart (heh) dropped a little bit.  As I pulled my car into one of the last open spaces a couple got out of gigantic BMW and scurried for the door.

As we stepped inside, the couple were talking to the girl who acts as hostess/waitress/chef/etc and were being told that there were no open seats and there were additional reservations covering at least the next hour.  I stepped back and conversed with my date about what to do and kept hearing the couple, who looked like absolutely miserable people, pushing.  “Well what about that table?”  “No, it’s reserved.”  “How about two seats at the bar?”  “Also reserved, I’m sorry.”  They regrouped, conversed, asked again about tables that had “reserved” signs on them.  They were flabbergasted and disgusted that somewhere couldn’t accommodate their wants, regardless of the situation.  They fled, irritated and I approached the girl.  She looked a bit flustered so I politely asked her if it would be possible for us to get a reservation at a later hour, after the next hour or two worth were fulfilled.  She looked at me, looked at the clock, and told me that if we could eat our meal in the next 50 minutes, she would seat us at the reserved table next to where we were standing.

Naturally, we accepted and, naturally, we ate a phenomenal meal.

And here’s the thing.  The place was pretty much at capacity, and all the open seats were spoken for.  We could’ve been turned away, but we acted like decent human beings.  The entitled couple could just as easily have had their meal, as we did, but they were jerks about the situation.  I’m sure they’re writing up a furious Yelp review as I type this.

So here’s me, now, being less than a decent human being and gloating about my “great victory”.  Seriously though, moral of the story:  You don’t have to be a dick all the time.  You haven’t earned that right and even if you have, it doesn’t mean you have to exercise it.  Sometimes just being a respectful person is the best way to be.