Sometimes, when it comes to news and “reading the papers” as the corny slogan for this website goes, the worst news you get isn’t in the papers — it comes from real life and it generally brings some shock.
We got some “shocking” or at least unexpected news this last week. My wife (we’ll be celebrating our 43rd anniversary later this month) developed a heart condition AND was diagnosed with diabetes at the same time.
The heart problem was the scary one, though all is well now. But the diabetes is the real long-term challenge.
She developed what the docs call an “atrial flutter.” That means the upper chamber (on the left side in her case) of her heart can’t keep in step with the drummers handling the beat of the rest of her heart. Her left atrium flutters along at a ridiculously high rate, and that rate spikes up and down even under such simple exercise as standing upright or getting up and down in a chair. After six days in the hospital, the docs found some pretty high-powered prescriptions that got the rhythm and rate of her heart under control. (Cost on the most important prescription runs around $200 a month.)
As for the diabetes, she is only barely diabetic and the good news is she should be able to control it with lifelong attention to her diet — particularly controlling the amount, nature, and eating time of carbohydrates.
We’ve been told that the heart problem and the diabetes are pretty common today in America, so that’s not really a shock or surprise. But when you sit across the breakfast table from the one you’ve loved all of your adult life and see here suddenly turn pale and look like that old proverbial “death warmed over” — hey, that alone is a heck of a shock.
Now that things have settled down, however, we’re working (she and I) on the diet part. Really, it doesn’t seem like it’ll be that hard. And it should cause us both to lose a lot of weight we should have gotten off sooner anyway. With a diet plan like this, we won’t soon need to look for any exotic diet pills, weight loss drinks, fat burners, whatever. Just nutritious eating in controlled portions.
Heck, I’ve already lost a couple of pounds in the last four days. Oh, goody.