Right before I turned off my computer monitor last night I read an article about diabetes and amputations. The article is startling.

One statistic, “Currently 40,000 legs are amputated in India each year” really freaked me out.

Losing my feet is a major fear of mine. It is the reason I quit smoking. It is what kept me up all night last night.

I tossed and turned for hours on end. Every movement made me aware of my feet and how numb they always are. Neuropathy has taken its toll on my feet and it terrifies me. (READ MORE)

Last night my family and I went over to my cousin's house for dinner. Her dad, my uncle, was in town from Texas so we wanted to visit with him before he left. Our other cousin was there with her kids and we had a really lovely dinner. (READ MORE)

Last week was a tough one for me. I was starting to feel really depressed. I know it comes with the D-territory but I cannot stand to feel that way for long. All the comments I received were huge and helped a lot. Luckily, I had a really fantastic weekend that lifted my spirits too and moved me out of the depressed zone I was in.

But something that I do not think has ever happened to me, happened last night. I had a diabetes nightmare and it really scared me. (READ MORE)

Drum roll please.

And the 2007 award for the most flippant comment related to diabetes management goes to ,

Mr. Travis Hudson, a reviewer of tech devices over at dvice.com, for his review of a shoe insole developed by New Zealand's Zephyr Technology called the ShoePod Diabetic, that "has the ability to detect diabetic peripheral neuropathy."

"Glucose, schmucose," the review begins.

"This allows yourself, or your doc to keep an active eye on your condition and provide plenty of preventative measures to keep those feet nice, healthy and still attached," writes Hudson. (READ MORE)

You may remember Richard Jewell, wrongfully accused of the '96 Atlanta Olympics bombing and basically convicted by the media for some time before Eric Rudolph was accused. He has died at 44.
Jewell was diagnosed earlier this year with diabetes, already had had toes amputated and was on dialysis. Given his age, I assume it was a Type 2 diagnosis. How bad did it have to be to have already lost toes to this disease? And then to die the same year as diagnosis? I am his age and reading this first thing today really brought home the seriousness of my condition. (READ MORE)