An important journey begins

I’m Mike Buhler, and I have diabetes

I knew it was coming.

When you’re very, very fat and have a strong history of it on both sides of your family, it is probably not a question of if you’re going to be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, but when. For me, it was three weeks ago.

It started around the end of October when I got a craving for a 12-pack of Strawberry Crush sodas. That in itself is a little weird for me, because I almost always drink diet sodas (yeah, there’s some irony there). After I started drinking them, I began to notice three things. First, I was getting very thirsty. Second, I was having to urinate, very, very frequently. And third, I began to notice the smell of ketones in my urine.

All three of those are red flags that could mean a person has diabetes, so I knew I had to go and get myself checked out. While I could have done a blood sugar check at home, I knew that I had to get my A1C checked. The last time I had it checked, I was in the pre-diabetes range, so I had a not-so-good suspicion.

To make a long story short, I made the two-hour trip to Carbondale, Illinois, on Nov. 11 to get blood work done. While the A1C would not be available until the next morning, I knew they could give me an instant result on my blood sugar.

It was 270.

How high is that? Well, if your fasting blood sugar is higher than 125, there’s a pretty decent chance you’re diabetic. With it being a 270, it was a no-brainer. All that was missing was Wilford Brimley.

I got my A1C back the next morning and it was 9.8. Anything over 6.5 is considered diabetes, so the diagnosis was confirmed.

There are many bad things associated with diabetes, but there are a couple of silver linings in that dark cloud. The first one is that eating right can make a big difference in how bad it is.

A second thing, at least in my case, is that it has finally given me the spur I need to commit whole hog (no pun intended) to shedding the weight I’ve gained over the last few years (and before, for that mater).

Since I suspected I was diabetic before I was diagnosed, I started reducing my calories and my net carbs the weekend before heading to Carbondale. I’ve been on a healthier-eating regimen for about four weeks now and it has been going really good. Even with taking a cheat day on Thanksgiving, I’m eating better — and consistently eating better — than I have in years. I’m even starting to be more active.

So far, probably the biggest hardship of this journey has been the quest to find the right medicine for me. My provider originally prescribed metformin, but it was so hard on my gut that we had to discontinue it after three days. So I started taking Rybelsus (the oral form of semaglutide; Ozempic is an injectable form of semaglutide) and so far, so good. Its catchline is “A1C — down with Rybelsus!” so I am cautiously optimistic.

To quote an ancient Chinese proverb, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Mike Buhler is a staff writer for the Daily American Republic. Contact him at mbuhler@darnews.com.