letter to friend

Letter to a friend of mine. 

 I am doing ok.   What amazed the dr was that anyone with diabetes is around at 92.  If you looked around here you see walkers and wheel chairs  And a few walking ok without help. Not all are diabetic  As a doctor for places like this all he sees are people extremely handicapped by diabetes.  Overweight, any kind of infirmity, blind, amputated legs, Heart disease, pain in the feet sores on the feet  so very few last past the age of 65.  I asked him how old he thought I was and he said 60 to 65.  So when I show up at 92 it is incredible.  He sincerely could not get over it. I was pretty sure that I was a rarity so when I ask a nurse how many diabetics they know who are over 90 and they glibly say lots.  The doctor proves that to be a lie.  Why they will lie about it is beyond me. They do absolutely no diabetic education.  I think a major reason there are so many overweight diabetics is they will not exercise.  The staff here frown on you even taking your own b/g test.  But if you don't know what you b/g is there is no way to control it. They serve good food here but way too much for a sedate people.  If you  eat  a meal of a thousand calories then go vegetate between meals there is no where for the glucose to go but out the kidneys or saved as fat around your midsection therefore most are way overweight. People here   could learn something but over the years they think they know something about diabetes or trusts the doctor to know what to do that they will not look into it any more. Diabetes is a disease that you yourself MUST take charge of.  A doctor can not do it unless he would sit with you and tell you what to eat and when to eat and what insulin to take and when. . They can not and will not do it.  So they go through the motions of medicating you for diabetes and you continually get worse and worse,  Finally you die and they go on to other patients with the same song and dance.   My main problem and it began years ago before I knew anything about diabetes and before I was diagnosed diabetic is my blindness.  Once it started nothing could be done about it.