How I Met My Maker...Almost

After writing a blog for almost two years now, I'm still baffled as to how I have not yet chronicled the chain of events that led to my hospitalization in December 2006. Most everyone who knows me is quite aware of my day to day battle with Type 2 diabetes, as well as my experience at that time. For some of you, this entry will be old news. If that's the case, you have my permission to skip class and go to the beach. It's actually rather nice out there now. For those of you who are new to the party, read on. But get some popcorn and a cold drink because it's a long read. In fact, you may wear out the scroll wheel on your mouse to get to the bottom of it.

Toward the end of the '90s, I had gained a lot of weight, so much so that one time I thought I heard a faint voice coming from the bathroom scale: "Oh no...it's...it's him again." But I got on anyway and noticed that after going around six or eight times, the numbers finally stopped with a figure in the little window—and it began with a "2." I realized that I was buying pants with a 40" (!) waist size. This was ultimate suckage.

Mysteriously, just after turning 40 in 1999, I noticed that my weight began to drop. I hadn't been walking much, nor had I cut back on how much or what I ate. The number went down, down, down. I also noticed that I was drinking some three to five gallons of fluids a day, and seemed to never quite satisfy my thirst. Regular Coke. Super-sized fries. Double cheeseburgers. All were on the menu. And the weight kept dropping. It was kind of nice because I could fit back into my size 38 Levi's 501s again. Then my 36s. Then my 34s...

I also noticed that I was falling asleep easily in the afternoon. One time in particular, a guy at work was showing me how to do a task that I was taking over for him, and after a blank moment, Bill said something like, "Hey, are you OK? You kinda dozed off there..."

One time, on the way home from a family trip to Disneyland, we stopped at an In-N-Out Burger next to the freeway to get drinks for the trip home. I downed a large regular Coke—the 32 oz. size—and when we reached our house, I ran inside almost before turning off the car so I could drink a giant cup of water because I was sooo thirsty. When Lori got inside, she came into the kitchen with a concerned/confused look on her face and said, "Something isn't right. You shouldn't be drinking like this. Go to the doctor and get it checked out." Yes, dear.

One morning not long after this, I had to visit Costco to get some pictures developed at their One Two Hour Photo (they were busy). That day, there just happened to be a health fair going on, and it was free for Costco members. You could get your blood pressure taken, a cholesterol reading, a blood sugar reading, and maybe even a facial. (I skipped the facial. Some other time...) I figured that with two hours to kill, I would go ahead and give it a try. Just before picking up my pictures, I stopped to get the results. All of my readings were OK with the exception of the blood sugar. The lady asked if I was diabetic because the reading was 290—almost triple what a fasting blood sugar should be. I told her that I had not been diagnosed as such, but would get it checked out.

So, I made an appointment with my doctor, a Dr. Hatwalker (yes, that was his name—stop laughing). Dr. H had me go take a glucose test, the one where you drink the most horrible, oversweetened orange soda, then they do an hourly blood sugar check for about four hours. Test done—let's eat, and yes I'll have fries with that!

Normally, when you've had some sort of lab work or test done, you get your results within a week or two. In this case, one week passed. Two. Three. Five. Christmas. Valentine's Day. March. So, what's going on here? I called the doctor's office (Seaview) several times to try and get the test results, unless they had decomposed from age by then. Eventually, I was told that I had to come into the Seaview office.

Wednesday, March 27, 2002. I went over to Seaview and was told to go down a long hallway and see the nurse in the back. So down the hall and around a corner I went. This was getting...interesting. When I reached said nurse, she told me that in order to get my results, I'd have to make an appointment to see the doctor.

I'm not sure exactly what happened next because after telling me that I would need to make an appointment and come back another time, the nurse looked up at me and said, "...Or, I can get you in right now." The only thing that explains that was that upon learning that I would have to make an appointment after all of the delays, I had to have given her The Look of Impending Violence in the Workplace™. Regardless, I was finally going to get the results!

After sitting in the little examination room for a bit, the door opened and a pleasant looking African American man with a Caribbean accent of some kind entered and introduced himself as Dr. Poyette, and that he was now the doctor on my case. He told me that he had reviewed the test results (no doubt after blowing the dust off) and that, yes, I was definitely, positively diabetic. At one point, Dr. Poyette stepped out of the room and I asked the nurse what had happened to Dr. Hatwalker. She only said, "He's no longer here." I asked if it was his idea, and she said, "No." 'Nuff said.

Dr. Poyette got me started on a basic regimen of Glyburide and Metformin (aka Glucophage), two common drugs for controlling blood sugar. Once on the pills, my thirst and hunger levels tapered off and I felt much better. I saw Dr. Poyette a few more times before they switched my primary care physician once or twice. Then my health plan at work changed and I started seeing Dr. Chochinov up in Ventura. Dr. C was an endocrinologist who came highly recommended. He kept pretty good tabs on me and adjusted medication as needed depending on what my various blood sugar/cholesterol readings were. Under his care, I continued taking Glyburide and Glucophage, and he added Actos.

The real trouble began when yet again, my health plan at work changed (November 2004) and I could no longer see Dr. Chochinov. I was assigned to Dr. Pluche. A nice guy and knowledgeable, but not an endocrinologist. I saw him a couple of times, but at the time, it was hard to get time off to visit the doctor (I should blog about that, but I'd probably ruffle some feathers and end up disappearing...) What happened next is really my own fault for not only dropping the ball, but kicking it down the street and onto the railroad tracks with a train coming. I did quite possibly the worst thing a diabetic can do: I took over and "tried" to manage my own care. (I put "tried" in quotes because you really can't manage diabetes completely on your own. With a chronic disease like diabetes, ALWAYS work with a health care professional.)

During late 2005 and all of 2006, little by little, things were coming apart at the screams. Around July 2006, I had booked a trip to Walt Disney World with some friends, to take place three months later. One fine day during that summer, I went outside to get the papers. In doing so, I walked some 60 or 70 feet round trip, only to get back inside the house so out of breath that you could swear I had run around our block (a half-mile) at full speed. During one of our casino parties shortly thereafter, I was carrying a blackjack table back to the truck and got so out of breath that our boss told me to sit for a few minutes. What's going on? I've carried many a blackjack table with no trouble. Never had one cause me to double down like this...

We had a layoff at work in the fall, and I got caught up in it, so I was looking forward to the trip to Florida to get away for a bit.

October was here, and it was time to head to Walt Disney World. I couldn't have asked for better weather for the trip, and could not beat a $237 round trip airfare on jetBlue, non-stop to Orlando out of Burbank. As a bonus, two of the people in our group work for Disney and were able to sign me into all of the Disney parks during the trip, saving me an untold amount of money. Walt Disney World for free. So what could go wrong here? Plenty.

Each morning while we were there, I got a wake-up call from Jim. We met up at our rented minivan and began our day by heading toward one of the four parks. A few times, I was so tired and out of it that I almost told Jim to go on and leave me to rest. With the Disney resort transportation system and a cell phone, it would be easy to catch up with the group if I was up to it. Instead, I chose not to be a party pooper and went along. I literally dragged myself through the parks and tried to enjoy everything as much as I could. Every chance I had to sit, I took advantage. At one point, we had a rare chance to ride in the front seat of the monorail between Epcot and the Transportation and Ticketing Center (TTC). And I dozed off along the way as well as on the way back later. My one time—and possibly only time—riding over Epcot on the monorail and I missed most of it.

To make a long story short, the week just dragged—quite unfortunate because I got to see just about everything that could be seen at Walt Disney World, only I wasn't really up to doing so. In hindsight, I should have canceled, but didn't want to miss it and knew that I could not afford such a trip for a long time.

The health problems continued. It got to the point that walking up one flight of stairs was a chore. I could get about halfway up before needing to stop and catch my breath. I found a job as a CAD drafter at Raypak, a manufacturer of swimming pool pumps. During the interview, I grew very comfortable with my boss-to-be. To be fair to him and the company, I shared that I was diabetic. He shared that the lady in his life was also diabetic. That seemed to give us a connection. But two weeks into the job, I managed to have a sugar spike and fell asleep at my desk. That was the end of the job.

Also, at that time, Diana's church youth leader took the group to dinner at our local Taco Bell every Wednesday evening before the meeting, and I usually came along to visit with the adults. One evening, one of the deacons asked me if I was OK, and I told him that I was tired, but OK. Usually, one of the adults sat and ate with me, but not tonight. They all huddled at a table across the way. Very strange. I know I took a shower, so it couldn't have been that...

Friday evening, December 1, 2006, two days after being snubbed at Taco Bell, I was stumbling around the house with slurred speech. Finally, Lori asked me, "What's with you tonight?" I told her that I wasn't feeling well and that perhaps I should drive over to the E.R. She said, "You aren't driving anywhere. Go get in the car..."

We went over to St. John's Pleasant Valley Hospital (about a mile away) and waited for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably not that long. Because it got late, Lori took Diana home and returned, just in time for them to call my name. All I remember is getting into a wheelchair and riding down a hallway. The next thing I remember was being asked by a security guard if I wanted to put my stuff in a locked cabinet. Huh? They told me to change into a hospital gown and wheeled me somewhere else, stopping in a little room off of the hallway. In a half daze, I thought, "They're admitting me?" The next thing I knew, it was morning and I'm laying in ICU, having been awakened at 0-poke-thirty by a nurse giving me a shot in the shoulder. Insulin, I learned later.

I was told that my blood sugar level had reached 478—pretty high, and at one point I was actually listed in critical condition. As for nourishment, I was on an IV solution and didn't have any solid food till Sunday. On Saturday evening, I was given a menu to choose my meal for Sunday morning. The meal arrived with a protein shake. I told the nurse that I hadn't ordered a protein shake, but she said that Dr. Weimer (the critical care doctor assigned to my case) wanted me to drink it in order to get my weight up. I don't remember being weighed, but found out that the hospital beds have an electronic scale built in. Out of curiosity, I asked the nurse what my weight was. She said, "117." I'm five-foot-eight. That was only about eight pounds more than Diana weighed then! And she was on the small side herself.

Eventually, I started having visitors. The people from church came by and prayed for me. The deacon who had inquired about how I was feeling at Taco Bell told me that he sensed something was wrong and that if he could have, he'd have picked me up and taken me to the hospital right then and there. Word for word, he said, "You looked like shit." Strong words coming from a church deacon. But I realized then that chances are, my condition was the topic of conversation at their table at Taco Bell. That would explain why they kept their distance that evening.

In all the years I've lived in Camarillo, it took this brush with death to get my older brother Mark to come to town from his home on Catalina Island. He arrived with our younger brother Paul, but told the nurse to tell me that "Frank and Joe" were there to see visit. I know some Franks, and I know some Joes, but none who would have been together. Confused, I told the nurse, "Send 'em in." Sure enough, it was Mark and Paul. My mom, sister Barbara, nephew Michael, niece Jani and her boyfriend Ivan arrived a bit later. Per the rules of the ICU, only two people can visit at a time, so they took turns. When my mom got her turn to visit, she faced the bed, gave me the stink-eye, and told me, "If you weren't laying in that bed, I'd kick your ass!" It must be serious business when a church deacon and Mom are swearing at me...

Three days after being admitted, I was stable enough to be moved from ICU to a regular room upstairs, where I would spend another three days for observation and diabetes education. I was also shown how to properly inject insulin, being that the other diabetes medications were useless against a pancreas that now produces no insulin of its own whatsoever. So now I'm a Type 2 dealing with the disease like a Type 1. Does that make me a Type 3? A Type 1.5? A Type Strange? Haven't answered that one yet.

One perk of recovery meant daily visits from a charming and rather attractive student nurse, Adelina. One of her duties was to get me up and moving. Adelina told me that I should take a couple of laps each day around the nurse's station. I couldn't stop at two. With her holding my arm for stability, I went ten laps each time because I could. Adelina was impressed and said that no other patient had worked that hard to get back up and into the game.

Thursday, December 7, 2006, was my release date from the hospital. After a courtesy shuttle ride from my room down to the entrance via wheelchair, Lori took me over to Longs Drugs to pick up My First Insulin Kit™ and get me started with the new regimen. And to be honest, I really am better these days. I am more aware of what I eat and make mostly good choices. I've returned to the care of Dr. Pluche and he's quite happy with my progress. I've started my long walks again. The downside is that while I needed to put some weight back on, I sort of went overboard. I will address that.

In the meantime, all of you take good care of yourselves. Find out whether diabetes runs in your family. If so, make sure you do everything in your power to lessen your chances of getting it, or delaying its onset. I was diagnosed at age 42. Having been informed of my history of long walks, Dr. P said that I probably delayed the onset of diabetes by about 15 years. And in his words, he says he's going to help me live to be 125. And who knows? I just might.