First Things First

"What you have is a wasting condition," my doctor said. The insulin in my body did not recognize the sugar in my blood. So, my body was breaking down fat and muscle to get what my cells needed. That explained the weight loss.

The first thing we had to do was get my sugar down. From 360 to what I still did not know at this point, but I was willing to try. Fortunately, we had already done some research, making lists of food that were considered good and bad. "Can I try this with changing my diet?" I said, hoping to avoid medication. He agreed to give me three months.

It was time to go shopping. My wife was totally supportive. Ours would not be a household with two sets of food. We agreed from the start to do this together. She had struggled for years with being overweight, and figured the reduction in sugar could only help her as well.

But first we had to clean out our fridge. And our freezer. And our pantry. Anyplace we kept food. No more white bread. No more Gatorade. No more sugar-filled candy or snacks or cereal or pancake syrup. Most of it was still in unopened containers. No problem. Our twenty-four year old son lived 5 minutes away in his own apartment. We packed up two large boxes.

It's amazing what you can learn by reading labels. We had no idea there was so much sugar in foods we ate every day. We needed a ballpark figure. So we looked at products in the pharmacy. Shakes and snack bars made for diabetics. We came up with 4 grams of sugar or less as our starting point.

We read the nutrition label on every single item. More than 4 grams? Put it back. Substitution in some cases was easy. Splenda instead of sugar. Propel instead of G2. Whole grain or multigrain for bread, bagels, english muffins, crackers, cereal and just about anything else.

We searched for everything and anything labeled "Sugar free". We found chocolate candy and cookies and snack cakes (thank you, god!).

Most items we found were either Diet or Lite or No Sugar Added. We found fruit pies. Even ice cream with only 3 grams of sugar. And this was only our first trip! We vowed each week to scan the shelves for new items we might have missed.

Returning home, we breathed a sigh of relief. Our fridge and freezer and pantry were filled once again. We could live like normal people. Everything was going to be okay. No real suffering. No sacrifice. Or at least, nothing major.

Oh, something I forgot to mention. My doctor had also suggested that "I might want to get a glucose meter". I walked out of there telling my wife, "No way! I'm not gonna start that. No meter. No checking my blood every day. Absolutely not. My condition isn't that serious. We'll fix it and I'll be fine!"

And she said, "How will you know?"

Of course, she was right. So, after nearly a week, I gave in. Walking into Rite Aid, we decided to be inconspicuous. To wander casually by the glucose meters. Just to see what they had. But how to choose? We had no idea. Reading the boxes, some appeared to have all kinds of programmable features. "Nothing too fancy," I said.

I decided on FreeStyle Lite. Tiny Sample Size. Small and Discreet. No Coding Required. A Better Testing Experience. This sounded great. But that was not all. Something about the butterfly on the box made me feel good.

Wait a minute. What about the strips? None of the boxes seemed to have any. And so we learned how it works. We decided not to use our insurance this time around. Even got a discount with our Wellness card.

I've never really been too queasy about blood. I skipped all the programming. "This thing's not gonna control my life," I said. Besides, I was really only doing this to put her fears to rest. I'd been living nearly sugar-free for a week now. My reading was bound to be good.

I probably shouldn't have been doing this after 8pm for the first time. The meter read 380. Even higher than before! We did a quick search on line. A random Q&A came up on some website. Question: "What would happen if my father's glucose reading was 380?" Answer: "He would be dead."

Suddenly, I was rattled. What to do? What to do? Call my sister, the nurse. It meant letting out my secret. (I didn't like to do this sort of thing with family.) She told me to call my doctor.

I felt like a fool, but it had to be done. (Another thing: my eyesight was starting to blur. I couldn't read anything with my regular glasses. We had picked up some magnifier lenses earlier in the week.) My doctor prescribed Metformin tablets, twice a day.

Here we go. Another thing I said I'd never do.