Is there a 12-step program for cucumber addiction?

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I swear, it's weird. When I started to eat salads a while back trying to get a grasp on what would masquerade as control of my life, I started to find I really liked cucumbers. No, really. Cucumbers with the seeds cut out and sliced into thin little crescent moons of goodness. A splash of Old Dutch salad dressing which is labeled as sweet and sour - although to me it tastes like spicy vinegar - and I am happy!

I cut them up and put them in a container overnight, and take them to work in the morning. It's my own little kick-ass cucumber salad without cutting up onion or adding sugar - or any of the other ways people make it. Sometimes I add sliced tomato, this time I added some carrot. More for color and because I should - than anything else. I would be happy with just the cucumber.

Don't get me wrong, I would love a cannoli. But right now - cucumbers are wonderful! Sometimes I think I'm craving vinegar, but what vitamin or mineral would that translate into? No idea. Just enjoying my cucumbers.
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Someday I'll eat cannoli

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Hey - everybody has to have a dream, right?



Yeah. Someday I'll have cannoli again.
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High sugar, low mood

I've been poking my fingers and measuring my glucose twice a day for a week now. I've only had one relatively close to "normal" reading the whole time.

My doctor looked at my test results and said "I'm going to have to treat you. You know that, right? I'm going to have to treat you." He said it like it was a punishment, like I had done something wrong and I knew what he meant. My numbers wouldn't be where they are if I had just lost weight. I couldn't do it and now my numbers are high enough that he had no choice except to treat me as a diabetic.

It was much easier before I was actually diagnosed, to think I could eat like a diabetic. I wasn't checking my blood sugar, I wasn't aware of all the sugar in foods I eat every day or how many foods are high carb.

Since coming home with my meter and no instruction beyond some pamphlets and what I have read online I have gone through many emotions. Crying in the car on the way home from the doctor's office is where I started. From there I think I moved to defiance - oh yes I WILL eat this piece of candy! And today - well today I am just down.

A co-worker just called me and asked if she brought in homemade butternut squash soup, would I eat it? She talked about the anti-oxidants and how good it would be for me. I hung up the phone and teared up again. It's almost 7:30 and I haven't eaten any dinner because I keep thinking - well there isn't anything I can eat anyway!

But it's not just the foods I need to avoid. It's all the mixed messages and confusing information I am getting in trying to research diabetes on my own. I didn't know exercise can lower blood sugar - but can also raise it if you do too much. Sugar is the enemy but no - carbs are worse than sugar - eat natural foods, the less processed the better but wait - fruit is a carb .....

End result to all of this is that I am just plain overwhelmed. Overwhelmed, maybe a bit scared, and if I'm being truthful - angry with myself.

Figures

While my Mom was visiting I went to have blood work done, I had an order from my doctor and it was getting closer to my next appointment. Bad news was, a couple of days later there was a message on my answering machine telling me the doc wanted to order more tests. My TSH was out of whack, my lipids, and my glucose was bad.

New tests run and my Hemoglobin A1C was in the diabetic range, my triglycerides are out of this world, and by some of the other numbers apparently I have an infection or inflammation somewhere. Gr-r-r.

Watching my Mom with her COPD/Emphysema I felt grateful I had quit smoking years ago. Also observing her attraction to junk food annoyed me because I have that myself. But she is about 5 foot nothing and about 100 lbs - and has always been that way. I'm - not that.

So tomorrow is my doctor's appointment and I will take my lumps. Or gastric sleeve maybe, yeah - that's the ticket!

We will see. Hopefully I will at least remember to shave my legs first.