Robert Hudson's blog

My Diabetic Reality

Robert Hudson — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 04:52:26 +0000

As I mentioned in my previous post, there's been a great deal of discussion lately about what it means to be a diabetic and how we as type 1s and type 2s self-identify with our disorders. It's come as part of a larger (and, in my opinion, 100% stupid) dialogue about which is worse, type 1 or type 2 diabetes.

I was going to make a joke here, something like "My answer is type 2, because I don't have type 1, ba-DUM!" But the thing is, it's not entirely a joke, when you think about it.

Club Membership

Robert Hudson — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 01:32:31 +0000

It's been an odd few weeks here on the Beedies front. When my doctor sent me to see the endocrinologist a few weeks ago, it was with the grim admonishment that I was most likely going to have to go on insulin. My comfortable little world of better living through pharmaceuticals was going to be swept away, and in its place I would find myself trudging through a grim dystopia of syringes in my bathroom, sad little bottles in the butter tray of my fridge and a pocketful of Jolly Ranchers to fend off hypoglycemic death.

I am perhaps overstating the possible state of affairs.

Six Things About The Beedies

Robert Hudson — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 23:24:25 +0000

As a part of Diabetes Awareness Month, today is apparently D-Blog Day. On this day in 1944, diabetes bloggers stormed the beach at Normandy and made the world safe for democracy. Or something like that; I should go look it up.

Anyway, to commemorate the occasion, diabetes bloggers have been asked to unite on a single topic. This year, that topic is "Six things you want people to know about diabetes". So here we go.

Back to The Beedies, with your host Tiny Rob

Robert Hudson — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 22:17:36 +0000

One day. I'll learn to start listening to that voice, the one that occasionally gives me advice, the voice that I largely ignore. It's a tiny little internal voice, coming (I presume) from a tiny little internal smart guy. In my imagination, he dresses much better than I do.

Let's call him... Tiny Rob.

Now, to be fair, Tiny Rob has a pretty spotty record. Sure, he may have been the one who sent me to the doctor five years ago, but he's taken more on-the-job vacations since then than George W. Bush. Tiny Rob has left me to my own devices for months at a stretch, only popping by occasionally to ask, "So, what'd I miss?"

Cold turkey is for the birds

Robert Hudson — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:56:21 +0000

For a variety of reasons that all add up to a perfect storm of unfortunate for yours truly, I have gone off my diabetes medications and shall be off of them for a few days. I ran out of both at the same time, and it happened on a weekend, and a holiday weekend, no less, so there was no one at my doctor's office to call. Furthermore, if I'd been paying attention (and really, why would I? It's only my health we're talking about here), I would have seen that I had no more refills on my prescription, meaning that in order to get more, I would need to make an appointment and go in to see my doctor again, which of course I should have done a few months ago, but my book came out and I've been busy being Mister Fancy Pants, etc. etc. etc., blah blah blah. Really, there are a number of excuses, but they all come down to my own personal dedication to being the very best cautionary tale I can be for the rest of you. No need to thank me, I do it out of love.

Missing the Gobbler

Robert Hudson — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:57:04 +0000

As Type 2 diabetics, we're often told that the best thing we can do for ourselves is lose weight. And that's undeniably true. But no one tells you ahead of time how weird that process can be.

Now, I write about my own weight struggle a lot, so perhaps it's time for me to own up to some actual numbers. I'm not an "alert the media" level fat guy. When I was diagnosed with diabetes almost two years ago, I went on a panic-and-phentermine-fuled weight loss frenzy, and I lost about thirty pounds. At 6'2", I got down to about 205 pounds. So not Jude Law, but not Jabba the Hutt, either.

This was quite a difference from the worst of my college days, when I weighed (and I can't believe this, even as I type it) about 280 pounds. I was a mess, a big sloppy boozy lummox. I'd managed to lose about thirty of those pounds before I was even diagnosed, because let's face it, Dean Wormer in Animal House was right. "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

Staring into the Abyss with a Party Hat on my Head

Robert Hudson — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:53:18 +0000

A funny thing happened this week. I turned forty.

Okay, perhaps it wasn't so funny.

The morning of my birthday, I took a long moment in front of my bathroom mirror. My apartment complex management was kind enough to replace the subtle lighting over the mirror that we'd had for two years with new, direct lights that look fancy but which might be more appropriate for an interrogation than the gentle transition from being asleep to facing the reality of my new life as a forty-something. Looking in the mirror, I swear I could hear the faint creaking sound of my bones as they calcified.

World Diabetes Day (World Day with Diabetes?)

Robert Hudson — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:46:01 +0000

Today is World Diabetes Day, by golly, although I doubt I'm going to get cake. (And how funny would that be? I'd eat it, too.) It does present a good opportunity to stop and actually assess my life as a diabetic.

I know, that's not politically correct. I am not supposed to self-identify as a diabetic. I am supposed to call myself a Person with Diabetes or a Swell Guy with a Complicated Pancreas or Blood Glucose Challenged or whatever. I suppose there's a newsletter that I should subscribe to in order to get the proper talking points.

The Abyss Calling on Line One

Robert Hudson — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 20:19:40 +0000

If life is in fact a series of actions and consequences (and good Lord, I hope it isn't), then the fact that I eventually developed type 2 diabetes (known affectionately around the Rummel-Hudson compound as "the Beedies") is about as mysterious as why it gradually gets lighter outside at roughly the same time each morning. ("Did someone install stadium lights out there? Lets investigate. Oh, look, the sun...")

In college, I lived a life of excess. Despite the fact that I also drank way more than I should have, the main culprit was food. Glorious, wonderful food. I live in Texas, so take those food items and deep fry them. (To this day, the idea of chicken fried steak repulses my northern friends, and yet just now, when I typed those three lovely words, I got a little slobbery.) I drank too much soda, I ate too much crap, and if something green ever went past my lips, it was probably an M&M.

Rob's Diabetic Wish List

Robert Hudson — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 12:00:08 +0000

Imagine for a moment that I found a magic bottle with a a genie who popped out and offered me ten diabetes-related wishes (because I'm swell and clearly deserve more than three). Of course I wouldn't be allowed to just wish away my diabetes altogether. (It's the small print that gets you every time). I might ask the Beedies Genie for the following:

-- Hallucinogenic metformin.

-- A couch with special cushions that will make my body burn calories while I sit on my butt and watch Battlestar Galactica.

-- A super smart version of phentermine that can fool the body for longer than three months.

-- A line of Converse diabetic Chuck Taylors-- For that matter, any diabetic shoes that are both affordable and don't look like they were designed either for Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein or the whole cast of Cocoon.

-- Mandarin Orange Propell at every beverage fountain.