Lee-Anne's Birthday

Friday was Lee-Anne's birthday. We don't have a ritual of exchanging gifts on these days, but this time I made an effort. She hadn't asked for anything, and was surprised when I let her know I'd gotten something. While she didn't ask what it was, she put forward a lot of questions to narrow down what it could be.

"Would my mother like it?"

"She's never given the impression that she would, but it would be of her generation, so she might"

"Would my grandmother know how to operate it?"

"Since she knows how to use a TV, I assume so"

"Would my youngest brother like it?" (I'm omitting names for the sake of the post"

"He seems sentimental, so if he ever had one of these in the past, he might like it"

"Would my second-oldest brother like it?"

"No, he'd think it was outdated"

It was a clock radio. I've been transparent since the "I'm Diabetic" post, so I guess I'll admit to the fact that we had a cockroach infestation last year. We had exterminators come over, and it's been many months since we've seen a roach, but while they were around they occupied and destroyed Lee-Anne's radio. Now that that danger has passed, it seemed right to bring it back.

She loves to fall asleep while listening to the radio. She had programmed a setting that let it run for half an hour and then turn off, which was helpful to me because I absolutely cannot fall asleep while it's on.

After the roaches destroyed her radio, she found an app for her phone that gave access to all the same options, including one that gave a delayed shut-off time. But since she's a sentimental person, I had the feeling that she would appreciate having an actual radio. It also serves as an alarm clock, and since she's legally blind, I got one with a large display of the time.

She seemed to like it! She mentioned that she should have asked if her father would like the gift, since he's the only other person in her family with a specific fondness for radio.

I was surprised that there were as many options for radios as there were, since I thought it was a mostly outdated technology. Before choosing the one that I did for her, I ordered another one. It had a smaller display and didn't have an alarm clock setting, but could play CDs.

I was recently surprised to learn that CDs are still being developed. I was in Wal Mart at one time, and I noticed their CD section. There was one for "Encanto Songs", which is a modern Disney flick, and there was one with a visual of someone wearing a facemask, symbolizing production during the pandemic.

I cheated my diet for Lee-Anne's birthday as well. We went to a local place that specializes in deep dish pizza. I justify this because I have to see my doctor every three months, and I just saw her last week, so if I cheat my diet I have three months to recover and correct before having to report on my health

Old Neighbourhoods

A little while ago I was in Guelph for a doctors appointment. Afterwards, I was going to call an uber to bring me to the train station to travel back to Kitchener, but I thought I'd walk down to the apartment building that I lived in when I used to walk to the clinic. From there I remembered that I used to walk to high school, and from the high school I would sometimes walk downtown, and from downtown I could get to the train station. It felt pretty strange, doing a walk that I'd never done before, but patched together from different familiar routes, mostly from over ten years ago. I never made a wrong turn.

I walked by my old high school. Now they've got an arch and a statue of a guy with his arms outstretched. One of my coworkers who is ten years younger than me that went to the same school said they put both of those up while she was attending.

This wasn't my only opportunity to revisit old neighbourhoods. At work, we were exploring community centres because our main building was getting painted. I wound up getting assigned to facilitate a group that was near the old shopping centre that I would go to while I was in college. It looks a lot different now. It used to be a strip mall, and now it's like a square made of mall strips.

There's an LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario). I used to find it strange that the one nearest was a half-hour bus trip, and then 15 minute walk away. I heard it theorized that this was by design, and that there was some agreement to not let students have such easy access to alcohol. That is apparently not the case anymore.

The Rabid Fox, which was the local pub, relocated slightly to one of the new mall strips. There is now Shoppers Drug Mart, which is a chain pharmacy that also sells everything else. This at least offers some competition to the Zehrs, which was previously the only option for groceries. Before, if you wanted a cheaper option, you'd have to take a half hour bus ride and walk for 15 minutes to the Food Basics next to the LCBO I previously mentioned.

Zehrs is a slightly more upscale Canadian grocery store. If I were a student nowadays, worrying about my budget and without the time to leave the neighbourhood, I would probably buy the bulk of my groceries at Shoppers.

For some reason, the area around Conestoga College has never seemed marketed to students. Across the street we had Pino's Pizza, which was advertised as gourmet, and we had Mango King, which was a sit-down Thai-Vietnamese place.

Last weekend I went to the Frederick Art Walk, which is an annual art exhibition held in the Central Frederick area. After graduating college, I lived for about five months in a connected neighbourhood. I was an independent facilitator at the time, and it seemed like all my colleagues lived here.

These people are really proud of their neighbourhood, and say that the century homes and urban forest are as impressive as the local artists. I always found this attitude to be slightly pretentious, but it is a nice area. I've got a friend who had a booth there selling wood-turned items and I bought a bowl.

I was going to bus back but I checked my Pokemon Go to see if there were any new locations and I noticed the cat hospital, which I recognized. From there, I pieced my way back to downtown and then walked home.

This weekend, Lee-Anne took me on a walk up by where she used to to live when she was going to university, and she showed me where her brothers lived too. It was good because I'd only walked 15 km this week, and I have a goal of 30 km weekly The walk she took me on wound up being around 12 km, putting me in a good spot to complete my goal by tomorrow.

I'm Diabetic

Almost three months ago I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I haven't talked about it except for with close family members, but I did mention in a post awhile back that I'd seen my family doctor for the first time in 10 years. The meeting wasn't about concerns over potential diabetes but we decided to do some bloodwork as part of the health check up. My blood sugar was crazy. Since I was asymptomatic we had to do a second test to confirm and I was consistently above the diabetic threshold.

I'm on several medications now and I'm wearing a glucose monitor called a freestyle libre. The monitor is like a little computer the size of a button, which fastens to the back of your arm. You can download an app and use your phone to scan the sensor to get information on your blood sugar at any given time. You can see your average levels throughout the day separated in three hour timeslots, you can see a chart of your levels each day that you use it, or see one based on an average over seven days, 14, 30, or 90. It has alarms to notify you if your glucose is high or low, and today I just started using a notes system that you can use to record your behaviour when your sugars are acting strange. I thought I would hate being monitored all the time but it's actually pretty cool. Each sensor is supposed to last 14 days, although that isn't always the reality.

You have to apply the sensor yourself, and it's very intimidating at first. I didn't have a person to guide me, just an instruction manual that came in the box and some steps presented by the app. It uses really clinical language, like "place applicator over injection site and push down to apply sensor", which is a fancy way of saying STAB YOURSELF IN THE ARM WITH A GIANT NEEDLE.

The needle does really look absurdly large at first, like the stinger on a murder hornet. There is a spring mechanism in the applicator, so it's not quite like just pushing it into your arm. The weird thing is that it doesn't hurt. The first two times I tried to apply a libre failed. The first one started to itch and it fell out inside an hour, and the second one stayed and I was able to set it up, scan it and get some data but it fell off while I was sleeping that night.

The relevant change I needed to make to keep them on, was I needed to shave a patch of hair. I also got some additional adhesive to put on my arm. The instructions just told me to clean the area with plain soap, swab with an alcohol wipe and let air dry, which is what I did the first two times. Now shave the injection site, then shower, washing with soap and exfoliating, then clean with an alcohol swab, let air dry, then use skin tac, then apply the sensor. Four different liquids hit my arm before injection.

My first successful sensor was fastened to the side of my arm, because for some reason I had trouble figuring out where the back of my arm is. It lasted the full 14 days. I had it on my left arm because I figure you move your less dominant arm around less, so you're not as likely to knock it against something, same reason you wear a watch on your left hand. I realized though that I usually sleep on my left side, so the second sensor I put on my right arm, but it only lasted six days. It didn't come loose, it just stopped working, I'm not sure why. Third sensor I put back on my left arm and it lasted 12 days but it stopped working the same way that my second sensor did. I'm on my fourth right now, and it's on my right arm again because when I see my doctor they're going to want to take my blood pressure on my left side.

I've had to cut out almost all carbs and added sugars. So I'm not supposed to have juice, pop, bread, pasta, rice, or potatoes. Pasta isn't too bad and I never made a regular habit of drinking juice or pop, but I've got some of my identity wrapped up in my status as a baker. In Katimavik when we divvied up house manager duties during the last rotation, I was selected to be the group's bread maker. I kept my family in homemade bread after finishing the program, and I made a habit of giving people surprise loaves of bread. I even gave Lee-Anne a loaf of bread before we started dating and I was trying to impress her. Katimabread is my first post on my recipe blog.

Rice also sucks. I've often said that fried rice is my most basic conception of food, that if I were sent into a kitchen and simply told to "make food" I would produce fried rice. I've often said that it is the perfect cross-section of sustainability, nutrition, affordability, flavour, and ease of creation. Many times, when not knowing what to make for dinner I would start to prepare a protein, start throwing vegetables in, make a cup of rice, throw an egg on it and only then see what I'd done, add some sauces and call it fried rice. It was the first thing I learned to cook after leaving for college, which I did by reverse-engineering the stirfry sold in our campus cafeteria. Among other impoverished students that didn't know how to cook, I was a king when I whipped up a giant pot of fried rice.

I can kind of get back into using rice, but it's got to be long grain brown. Not too bad since my favourite was basmati, which is already long grain. I like to buy the giant sacks of rice that you can get in the international aisle, and luckily I found one with long grain brown basmati. The sack is plastic, not burlap like my previous brand, but it's still cool.

Lentils share many of the virtues of rice, with their sustainability and affordability and they are diabetic friendly. Canada produces three times as much lentils as India, the next highest lentil-producing nation, 95% of our crop produced in Saskatchewan. I'm trying to make lentil soup the new fried rice.

My sugar levels have been really good. Like, non-diabetic good and consistently low. That doesn't mean that I'm cured, though. It means I'm able to prevent active damage to my organs with the help of medication.

I've had to get my kidneys, eyes, and feet checked. These are the three areas they use to determine if you're symptomatic. I'm still okay in all three of these categories, and I've never had a dizzy spell or anything like that either. We only know about my condition through the blood tests, which is a good thing.

It's hard not to speculate about when I developed it. Since I didn't see my doctor for ten years it could have been any time within that span. It could have been when I was working in the group home, doing obscene hours. At one point I was doing sleep shifts full time, while maintaining four direct support contracts and taking five university courses. I kept clothes in my backpack and did my laundry at the group home, kept a bar of soap on me and showered at local pools, and ate leftovers at the grouphome or fast food all the time. I was so busy I was functionally homeless. My body could have crapped out then.

Or it could have been near the beginning of the pandemic when I went full survivor-mode. I thought society was going to collapse, and my fear drove me to exhaustion. I didn't leave my unit except for groceries for months at first after having been accustomed to walking over 50 km per week. Combination of stress and sudden drop in physical activity could have done it.

But I guess we will never know. All there is to do is keep trying to lose weight and keep my sugar at a healthy level.