Diabetes @ MindSay

I didn't want to write too much about it earlier this week because I didn't want to make a fuss over it, but on Tuesday I had a health scare. There was a time when I was able to fast very well, go for long periods where I could just survive on a diet of ramen once daily or subsist on hotdogs and mac and cheese and wash it all down with a 2-liter of Cola. Those days are gone now. Now when I don't eat properly, or starve, my health really goes south. Dangerously so. No money means no food means I starve means I become lethargic means I nod off to sleep like a narcoleptic means I could possibly slip into a diabetic coma. Ouch! I can't starve when I've got Diabetes! Almost this entire week I unintentionally starved and my blood sugar, to make up for not eating, sky-rocketed. I had no energy to get out of the house. I sank into a funk. A bad funk. Not just a depression kind of funk. Nope. The kind where I was nodding off to sleep every fifteen minutes. Time would pass by like I was Rip Van Winkle. One minute it's 6am, the next it's 6pm. I lost track of time, didn't know what day it was, and when I finally alarmed myself enough to walk to the hospital, I was almost sleep walking on the way there. I discovered real quick not to mess with the Diabetes!



I was attended to immediately by a German doctor who always seemed to be working the ER whenever I have a problem. He's stern, to the point, and his bedside manner often shifts from frigid to warm unexpectedly. I never know how he's going to treat me, but I can usually depend on him to give things to me straight. When they wheel me in (I always feel awkward in a wheelchair) he says, "So there you are again! What haven't you done this time, Valentina?" I like how he always calls me by my full name. My name sounds better when spoken with a European accent. When he read my chart and checked my vitals he wasted no time in telling what needed to be done to get me strong again. I expected him to lecture me on not eating enough, but he didn't. This time he just patted me on the shoulder and left me in the care of two very cute, VERY HOT male nurses. Yum!



These men were my vampires for the evening. They were quick and painless and they only scared me a little when they informed me they were going to put an IV in me. I had become severely dehydrated Tuesday night. The only way to get some energy going in me again was to stick that IV in. It's never a pleasant experience for me. The last time I was sick the nurse who put the IV in was really harsh and left a slight scar on my hand. It always feels hurty when they wiggle that thing into my vein. To make things easier, Tuesday night's Hot Male Nurse #1: Jasper (I'll call him Jasper because he calmed me down and also spurted a bit of blood out of me that tickled) decided to show me how an IV works and it relieved my anxiety. Hot Male Nurse #2: Edward (we'll call him Edward because he extracted a lot of blood out of me, so much so that he began to look all sparkly vampire to me) I forewarned because I have a lot of problems with nurses who can't tap my veins properly took the forewarning as a challenge and promised me he wouldn't hurt me. AND he kept his promise. It took him only a few seconds to find a vein and proceed. I was amazed. I told them I would write about them in my blog and describe them as my Vampires of the Evening which sounds very sexy and something that gave them a giggle. Yeah. They can attend to me anytime!


So what, you may ask, kept me from eating? Well... a long kinda annoying reason. My payee representative was being too reclusive again and not providing me my money like he's supposed to each week. No money. No groceries. Val starved unnecessarily. It's time to get a new payee. Or time to convince Social Security to let me handle my own finances again. Disability helps but often means I'm on a money diet. I call it money diet, not budget. Sometimes it's a fast. I go through long periods where I don't get my money and then I have a lot of money and back to no money again, all depending upon the mood of my payee. I hate having to live on someone else's whim. It's not fair, I know. I should put up more of a fuss but the process to get a new payee is more difficult to deal with, if you can imagine. It costs money I don't have.


My payee rep is my brother and he was embarassed to come deliver money to me while I lay in hospital. He knew it was his fault and, because he doesn't know a lot about diabetes himself, didn't realize I wouldn't be able to survive on crumbs. My medication doesn't work without me sufficiently eating at regular intervals. I've learned that I have to set times during the day to eat and plan snacks in between. It requires me to even carry snacky things in my purse now to balance my blood sugar. It's this tight rope act balancing carbs and sugars that often gives me a headache. At times I don't pay attention to it, I just want to eat normally or not as often because when I do eat often I still get that old conditioning from the past -- that old stereotype of the fat girl sneaking off to eat every five minutes and being made to feel self conscious about every time she eats because she's fat, she's expected to be over-eating all the time. Ugh!

But I digress...

I was in the hospital for three hours without TV but my Vampires of the Evening kept me company and gave me inspiration to dream pleasantly while the IV went drip-drip. By the time I got out, I thought I could hop on a bus and go grocery shopping. Unfortunately my body was still not up to the task. I walked half way to the store and began to have this sinking feeling and dizzy head. I had to eat right away. Hopped into a Subway, got a footlong roast chicken to go, and called a cab. By the time I consumed calories, the sinking and dizzy head cleared and then I had the opposite of lethargic.

There was no sleeping for another 12 hours for me. This meant spending a sad, boring night feeling like the only survivor left alive in an apocolyptic Zombie outbreak. The silence was unbearable. When I get a phone call at 3am, it's my brother again. He had gone out drinking after delivering me some cash at hospital. He was just as sad and bored. So I told him to get his drunk sorry ass over to my place and we'll watch Year One.

Well, that's all it took to end that funk. A ridiculous comedy to keep the giggles going. But my troubles still aren't fully at bay. I get these little anxieties lately, just pushing my dreams around to where I feel like I've gotten no rest. I almost slipped into a second funk until my friend, Trent, called me in the morning and he ordered me some Domino's and when I sank my teeth into some bread bowl pasta, I really devoured the wonderful sense that my friends are the greatest!

As of Friday the 13th of November, I've got left overs in my fridge, I woke up at 6:30am without compliant, took a long walk in the woods, snapped some photos of these lovely pink dawn skies we've been having lately, and with the exception of a slightly "something's missing" or "I need to do something more" mixed with "I wish I had someone to see today" feeling, I'm feeling good.

Here are the skies I saw this morning:



You're not imagining that image there. That is not a sunset. It's a firery pink sunrise!



Just a few seconds later, the sky got golden. The sun really looks on fire here!





The clouds shift, separate, collide, breathe away from each other, and smooth themselves out into human-face-like shapes. My elders would say that it is the sky itself speaking.



I'm glad I didn't miss this this morning. The clouds were really moving.





I took this one right in the parking lot of my apartment complex. It was like a reverse sunset/sunrise. The clouds were so pink and changed so quickly to gold and then to a white haze within seconds.





That's all I have to share for now. I think I need some lunch and maybe a nap. I have more images to post, but I have to remember to let my body catch up with my mind, if you know what I mean!

 

Today Dale and Leilani Neumann were sentenced in the death of their daughter, Kara.

They will have extended supervision/probation for 10 years.  In a way of tribute to Kara, they each will serve 30 days of county jail for the next six years - adding up to about 6 months of jail time for both of them.  The judge's feeling was that they should be able to raise their remaining three children.  Additionally, he felt the risk to the community is low.

And of course you know I think this is crap, worse than a slap on the wrist.  Just another example of people getting away with murder.  Oh, excuse me, it was second degree reckless homicide.

http://www.wsaw.com/home/headlines/63630282.html
http://www.waow.com/Global/story.asp?S=11267974

Many of us suffer from type 2 diabetes. In fact there are about 14 million people in the United States who are in this situation and a good number are being treated with Avandia, a medicine designed to increase the body’s sensitivity to insulin. The drug was first marketed in 1999 by GlaxoSmithKline and it became so popular among physicians that more than 60 million prescriptions have been written.

 

Avandia, also know as rosiglitazone,  is an oral anti-diabetic agent that also improves glycemic control and reduces circulating insulin levels for those who have Type 2 diabetes and are not insulin-dependent. Avandia is sometimes prescribed with other medicines but is not used for the treatment of Type 1 diabetes.

Diabetes sufferers should know the signs of low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) and how to recognize them, including hunger, headache, confusion, irritability, drowsiness, weakness, dizziness, tremors, sweating, fast heartbeat, seizure (convulsions), fainting, or coma (severe hypoglycemia can be fatal). Always keep a source of sugar available in case you have symptoms of low blood sugar.

GlaxoSmithKline reported that annual sales of the drug climbed as high as $2.5 billion in 2006. The drug's patent expires in 2012. The drug appears to be quite versatile as researchers have suggested that it could also help treat some form of Alzheimer’s disease, ulcerative colitis and even malaria.

However, there is also a history of concerns about Avandia, including questions that it might lead to an increased risk of heart attacks.  One scientific study concluded that there was nearly a 40 percent higher chance of a heart attack among Avandia users than those not on the medicine. The company itself has acknowledged there could other side effects, including peripheral edema, or problems in the extremities caused by fluid retention and swelling. Another risk is macular edema, in which there is swelling and protein buildup in the eye.

There have been numerous lawsuits filed over the effects of Avandia and it is easy to find notices about these on the Internet. If you track these over the last few years you will notice a growing number of warnings about the drug and offers by law firms to represent victims.

GlaxoSmithKline is well aware of the problem. The company notified physicians in December, 2006 of the dangerous side effects. However, the problem goes back much farther than that. If you do some research on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration web site you will find that on June 28, 2001, the FDA issued a warning to GlaxoSmithKline. The FDA told the manufacturer it was not being completely forthright in its promotional materials about the risks of the drug.

 

Then, in April of 2002, The FDA issued another letter about the dangers of Avandia. This one warned healthcare professionals about a change in the warning label on Avandia  in connection with the possibility of excess fluid retention and congestive heart failure in patients taking Avandia.

That was followed in December, 2002, with a letter the FDA sent to GlaxoSmithKline to include another warning paragraph on the Avandia label:

"In postmarketing experience, there have been rare reports of unusually rapid increases in weight and increases in excess of that generally observed in clinical trials. Patients who experience such increases should be assessed for fluid accumulation and volume-related events such as excessive edema and congestive heart failure."

 

 

With a history like that those of us taking Avandia should wonder just what we should do. The FDA says that it is conducting a complete investigation but for those who exhibit the symptoms of serious side effects that the FDA warns about will the results of that investigation come in time?

That there are serious, unresolved risks with the use of Avandia goes without question. On its web site the FDA lists the following organizations that are in agreement with this:

• American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists
• American College of Cardiology
• American Diabetes Association
• American Heart Association
• Endocrine Society

“FDA agrees with these organizations and is conducting a thorough investigation,” the government says on its web site.

What will be interesting is whether the government and its investigators or the legal community and its resources get to the bottom of this first.

In 2006, a "prescribing information" paper issued for Avandia from FDA's MedWatch talks about the increasing evidence of risk of cardiovascular events. This is found on page 13 of the document and highlighted in yellow by MedWatch. MedWatch is the FDA Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program.

The longer Avandia and Actos have been on the market, the more evidence of adverse cardiac events, fluid retention and congestive heart failure. All of this culminated this week with the newest study on Avandia which linked it to a risk of heart attacks and death from cardiovascular events.

Avandia Heart Attack

After 15....yes, 15 hours of deliberation, we have a verdict!!!  At around 3:30 pm this afternoon, the jury in the case against Dale Neumann came back with a verdict.  Finally.  I was seriously afraid that it would be a hung jury and it would start all over again with a new jury.  But, no, the jury finally was able to come to a consensus.

 

And a GOOD one at that.  We the jury, find Dale Neumann.....an idiot.  No, unfortunately that's not against the law, even though it should be.  He was found GUILTY of second degree reckless homicide, in the death of his 11 year old daughter!!  :D  <---- smiles at the verdict, not the death of his daughter.  I didn't celebrate as loudly as I did when his wife was convicted because I feel like ass today, but I still am thrilled with the verdict.

 

When the guilty verdict was read, he showed NO emotion.  What does that tell you?  A gag order is still in effect, meaning that no one from the prosecutors office, defense attorney, Dale Neumann himself, are allowed to comment.  But, as he left the courtroom, Neumann was heard humming a song and seen carrying his Bible.  Sentencing is in October at the same time as his wife's.  They both are out on bail right now and will continue to be.

 

Apparently because of these two trials, the county's budget is in the red and will need to dip into an emergency fund.  The county taxpayers paid $30k for attorney and jury expenses before Dale Neumann's verdict was read, and the Clerk of Courts says that they would likely end up contributing to the emergency fund as well.  And, when you think about it, the taxpayers are also paying for both Neumann's prison time.  We're bending over and taking it in the ass for them killing their daughter.  Doesn't seem like true justice, does it?

 

You can read more or watch video at WSAW.com.