Whew. . .imagine my surprise when I realized I hadn’t posted here since late January. On the one hand, I wanted to shut down the site and consider it, and me, a failure.
Then I stopped and reflected. It’s been one heck of a year so far. A quick rundown:
- My sister’s cancer got worse in January which led to us spending March (the whole month) away from home in Virginia where she got proton radiation treatments (and is now doing very well!). I can’t recommend www.HamptonProton.org high enough for both the treatments and the caring of the staff. You walk in a stranger and out family.
- At the same time, our Mum wasn’t feeling well. So I took a couple weekends while in Virginia to “run down” to South Carolina (they’re not as close as you’d think) and check in on Mum. We took care of a few doctors’ appointments and scheduled others for early April.
- Brought Sis home at the end of March and was in South Carolina from April 1st through June 9th with Mum. Lots of tests and biopsies only to watch her lose more weight and feel weaker. Finally, on my birthday in early May, we got word that she had Stage IV lung cancer that had progressed to where it was untreatable and she had a few months. She passed on June 9th.
- On June 10th, it was back to Virginia for 2 weeks. Then home for 5 days during which I had a pneumonia, then back to South Carolina where I’ve been since late June.
In early May, I realized that I hadn’t seen my own doctor since January and needed my A1C checked for my diabetes. I found a HealthFinders (wonderful places!) in a local mall and they would check it for $20 — no muss, no fuss and instant results. I was at 7.2 despite eating extremely well.
At that point, I decided to focus on caregiving for Mum (this was just before we got her diagnosis) and improving my health while fitting my business in around those two priorities.
I”m writing this article on September 3rd. Depending which chart/organization you listen to, I’m close to reversing my diabetes. Some say anything under 6.5 is pre-diabetic and no longer considered diabetic. Others say under 5.7 is normal and no longer diabetic. My goal is to get under 5.7 and I’m going with “under 6.0” as no longer diabetic. I’m currently a 6.5.
My next, and future, articles will share how I’ve done this despite the stress of caregiving, the passing of my Mum, being home/seeing my husband for only 9 days since February and running a business. While I’m sorry not to have posted here daily, something had to give and I made the choice that this would be it.
I’ve thought about writing this post so often and just couldn’t do it. Today I did and am happier for it.