The Ravages of Diabetes

My first hand knowledge of diabetes came at the young age of 18. I married Rog when I was 18 and 2 months later he gave me an experience that I will never forget the rest of my life. He was diagnosed with diabetes at the young age of 9. For many years he lived in denial of it and wasn't compliant with all the things that being a diabetic requires. When I met him I was 15 and someone had mentioned to me that he was a diabetic. When I asked him about it he denied it and told me that his brother was the one who had it. Well, I learned differently once we became more serious in our relationship. The only problem was I didn't know anything about it. I just knew that he had to have a shot every day. That was it.
Shortly after we were married he came home from work because it was raining and he couldn't do his job which was putting in sprinkling systems. When he came home he told me he was going to lay down and have a nap. While he napped I was watching t.v. and not too long after he got up and told me that he was really hungry. I said to him "just a second and I'll get you something to eat." Well, you don't tell a diabetic to wait. I didn't know that of course and as I was watching t.v. he was in the kitchen trying to get something to eat. I looked in there and he was trying to eat anything he could get his hands on. I noticed that he was starting to have convulsions. I grabbed the syrup and was trying to pour it in his mouth and it was getting all over his big beard he had at the time. I began to scream because by this time he had convulsed and bit his tongue and was bleeding from the mouth. My little old neighbor in the apartment next to us thought he was chasing me around the apartment because we were newlyweds so she didn't think anything of it. I called 911 and immediatley the paramedics were there to assist. The whole time I was thinking I was going to be a widow. When he came to a couple of the paramedics were helping me because of my status and when he saw that he was furious because he didn't know why these men were surrounding me. He finally realized what had happened. I will never forget that experience and like I said it was my first and not my last experience with living with a diabetic.
Over the last 30 years I have watched Roger deal with this disease. I have seen the effects of his blood sugars being too high and also being too low. I've seen how it zaps his energy for days. I have had to call the paramedics another time when I couldn't get his blood sugar to come up high enough. I have watched him deal with chronic pain for years. I've seen him be very depressed about having to deal with these issues day in and day out. I've been to the emergency room with him when he had accidently given him the wrong insulin. We knew he was going to be in trouble and wanted to be close by where the doctors and nurses could help. It's hard to sleep at night knowing that he could wake up with a very low blood sugar which in turn could end up in convulsions. Even though we both know how blessed he is to still be so healthy after having diabetes for 41 years it's still hard not to ask yourself the question "why?"
Unfortuntley diabetes runs in his family. His older brother has it. He has 3 nephews who also have it and a cousin. It's a devastating disease and I pray that nobody else in our family will ever have to deal with it.
I want my husband to know what a hero he is in my eyes. It's so hard as a wife to see him each day taking shot after shot, checking blood sugars 8 times a day, having such stress at his work which in turn causes his blood sugars to go from one extreme to the other. He tries so hard to stay in control but it's been such a game lately. He works so hard for me and has such pride in all he does. I pray that he will know that I appreciate all that he does for me and that I can acknowledge them more. Again, he's my hero and i pray that he will be able to have many more years to enjoy life after retirement.

How different our bodies are

I couldn't help but laugh when we were hiking in Arches this weekend. Roger and Jake were in front of me walking and to see the difference in their calve muscles and legs. The Pynes are notorious for their skinny legs. Troy happened to get Rogers skinny legs and Jareds are just normal. Jake happened to be blessed with huge calves that my boys are jealous of. When Shana was dating she happened to go out with a guy that worked at 24 Hr. Fitness and then when Jake came over and she introduced him to us and Jared saw Jakes calves he asked him if he was the one who worked there and he said "no". Jared was kind of embarrassed but we assumed it was since they were so huge. We are never happy with our bodies are we? There is always someone who we are jealous of but then there are times when we can go to a water park and look around and see bodies that are much more worse than ours. I guess we just have to be thankful for what we have and not complain. ( it's hard though). Anyway, I love Rogers skinny little legs even though he doesn't like them.

Our Family Moab Trip

For the past 3 years Roger and I have done a trip to Moab in May and we've always gone alone. This year the kids wanted to join us so we made our reservations for the KOA campground and headed on down there. The weather cooperated even though it was over 90 degrees. Thank goodness for an airconditioned RV.
Some of the things we got to do was ride the bikes, the guys golfed, we swam, we went to Arches and enjoyed the beautiful creations there and we went shopping and out to dinner a couple of times. Makinley scrapped up her knees every couple of hours, Daxton learned to hold onto his new pilot bike and Brayden loved trying to catch lizards. We missed having Troy and Kori there of course and hopefully they can join us next year. I love getting our family together for these adventures. I'm so glad they still love to camp and that they are passing that tradition onto their children. I look forward to going many more times with our family and enjoying each others company. Here are a few pictures of our fun trip.

Mothers Day

My family has known that Mothers Day is always a hard holiday for me. Every year I write in my journal about not having my mom here to honor her. And how hard it is to look over all the mothers day cards in the store and wishing I could pick out that special card just for her.
One year I was having such a hard time trying to prepare myself for this day. I actually went to the store and picked out that "perfect" mothers day card just for my mom. I felt in my heart that she knew I was having a hard time and I also felt she knew that by me writing in it and taking it up to her grave and laying it on her headstone that it would somehow make me feel better. I'll never forget that because it really did help me to do that. I'm sure whoever picked it up when cleaning up the cemetery laughed at it but truly it made me feel better. I was able to tell her how much I loved her. How much I missed her and what a wonderful mom she had been.
After 26 years you would think that this holiday would get easier. But the emptiness still is there. The envy that others still have their moms and how lucky they are.
I remember my moms last Mothers Day. She was in the University of Utah hospital which would inevitably be her last visit there. She had been in so much pain that the doctors had given her a ton of medicine. As most of you know when taken in large quantities it can make you hallucinate and do things that you would never remember doing. Roger and I and Jared drove up to the hospital to give her her gift and card and when we got there she told me that she had tried to escape from the hospital. I thought she was joking until I read her chart. The nurses had noted that she had tried running down the hall to escape and she fell and hurt her hip. They had to take her to be xrayed to determine if there was a fracture. As I read the chart I cried becaue I knew this was not my mom. This was the drugs making my mom behave that way. We had always told here that we would never put her in a rest home to die and that's what she thought we had done. We reassured her that she would be coming home with us. She did come home a few days later and then passed away on July 6th, 1981. So today, on Mothers Day, I again want my mom to know how much I loved her, how beautiful she was and how I want to be just like her. I am in the sense that she loved to dance, and was full of energy and loved to be active and be outdoors. She missed out on seeing me as a grandma now and seeing my 3 children grow up and have kids of their own. I hope that she would be proud of me and the choices that I have made.
As for me being a mom...There is no greater calling in the world than that of being called "mother". I remember when my children were little and as soon as they came home from someplace the first thing they did was yell at the front door "Hi Mom!!" I was always glad that I could be home to hear them say that. I love being a mom even as old as my kids are now. It still thrills me when one of them walks up to me and puts their arm around me. I've done my best trying to teach them right from wrong as they were growing up. And now I look at them and I'm so proud of them and the choices they have made. Sure we have had our rough times and we had challenges as parents but they've turned out to be great kids. I pray that they will know that I cherish them and would do anything in the world to help them.
So on this Mothers Day I wish to tell everyone a Happy Mothers Day and to remind those who still have their moms to cherish the times they have, to appreciate being able to call them on the phone and say hi, and to remember to tell them that you love them.