Mea culpa

I have been gone a while havn't I? Well, I am still here, still frustrated, still piecing together health.

These days, my principal focus in this nagging and persistent hypoglycemia. For those of you who follow this and do notknow what hypoglycemia is...well, I recommend a brief search. Shortly, it is low blood sugar. When the glucose levels in the blood drop below a certain level, organs, such as the brain, are starved for nourishment. WHy this happens and what to do about it are the subject of volumous, and contradictory, authorities. I will not go into it here, though I should.

Ok, yes I will...

Hypoglycemia involves the entire glandular system, not just the pancreas. The hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid, liver and adrenals form the rest of the orchestra which plays out the blood sugar story. The thyroid gland controls the rate at which the blood sugar is burned. The pancreas controls the blood sugar level by secretion of insulin or glucagon. When the pancreas oversecretes insulin in response to consumption of refined carbohydrates, the adrenals produce adrenalin. This stimulates the liver to break down glycogen to compensate for the low blood sugar levels. Repeated adrenalin secretion eventually exhausts the adrenals, rendering them unable to play their part in the symphony. The blood sugar drops are consistent with endocrinal drops, that is, not adrenal:
headaches,
low blood pressure,
confusion,
disorientation,
nausea,
cold hands and feet
lethergy
anger

Its not pretty, and it happens all through the day.

I have added chomium picolinate to my many, many, (many) supplements, and am becoming more consistent with my magnesium supplementation. I am eating every 2 or 3 hours, but that does not seem to help much. Its still a rollercoaster, and it makes my guts hurt all day long.

I am frustrated.

My doctor has found me an endocrinologist to work with...in may. may 10th. A month after I saw her for the refferal. This is not her fault, but this is my frustrations with doctors and medicine. Still, I have been so very patient before, that I can be more patient now.

I am supprised that I am just never hungry. I eat, and eat a lot, but I am seldom hungry at all. Eating all day makes food all the more repulsive to me. I hate how food and pills have become a centerpoint for my life.

I feel like an invalid. No, I am not constrained to a bed, but largely my life is organized with my illness and my associated limitations in mind. This embrasses me. It makes me want to push people away. I know they know. On evenings where things are not falling apart, people will comment how fun I was. I hate this. It makes me feel worse. When I am feeling badly, people must notice this too. I do. I don't feel like I have acess to being me. I feel like I am siting on the sidewalk, getting older, watching the parade pass by.

I don't really know what I think will happen anymore. Will my body just get better bit by bit? Is this as good as it gets? I suspect that it is. It makes me feel like running far away from anyone I ever knew and being alone where I am not dragging people down. It makes me want to be invisible, to live my life in the shadows of existence, to hide away from the light, and from the inevitable disspointment.

I have lost, I feel, the art of enjoyment. I am getting better, every day, at suffering. I am forgetting how to live without this thing in the middle of every heartbeat.

What is really great, is that I get to do this dance for another 40 years. This sucks.


Now, caveat time: I am in a poor me mood. By the time I send this, it might have dissapated. I am, largely fine, but I hate the looks of pity I get. I hate that when the people who know what is going on inside think I am being difficult, they all think---Michael just needs to eat...or take a pill, or _____. Its never me they see. I am not even free to be an asshole. I feel pitied, and I hate that.

Largely things are better. Better and better. Sunshine and strippers and midgets and ballons people. I promise. But I still feel...shattered. Does everyone feel this way? Psychologists tell me they do. They imply that I am waiting to feel a way other people never feel. They are wrong though. They have no idea. I know normal. I know what it feels like. I know I can cry and be bored, and fail, and forget, and get lost while I feel normal. It is not supernormal for which I seek, just a day where my pains are under my control a little more.

Well folks...thats all I have for now. Maybe more on Hypoglycemia later. I know you have your own woes. Thanks for listening to mine.


PS- h'delics. I officially hate you all. Twice now friends of mine have gone to the Pfieffer center, improved rapidly, and then stopped using the supplements because....well, no reason. I wish it were that easy for me. You are ungrateful-and I hate you. Just thought you should know.