I don't remember the last time I was under 200 lbs. I'm thinking it's at least two years ago, though. But I hit that milestone this week, and this morning I was 198. That's a full weight bowling ball I was carrying around 3 weeks ago that I'm not carrying any more.

I scheduled my colonoscopy for next Thursday. I'm not looking forward to this. I won't be awake during the procedure, but the prep (clear liquid diet for 36 hours, and drinking whole bottles of laxative) doesn't excite me.

When I committed to blogging regularly about my progress in fighting diabetes, I imagined that there'd be so much to write about. In the beginning it felt like my entire life would be taken over with disease management--constant food monitoring, glucose monitoring, exercising, and preoccupying myself with thoughts of cheesecake and chocolate ice cream I was deprived of. But as it turns out, eating differently is becoming a habit. BGM is just a few days a week instead of every day. I take a good vigorous walk whenever I have the chance. And I don't really feel all that deprived. I'm happy about the weight loss and that compensates.

So maybe I need to write about other things besides myself. The situation in the middle east, maybe. The shooting yesterday at the Jewish Federation building. But there are so many other people blogging about those things. My blog was always meant to be my outlet for recording my thoughts about my life. Originally I thought I'd write about being out and perpetually single. Then I thought it would be about my health. But all of that is just bits and pieces of life. And it's my blog, so I can write whatever I want.

Last night I was at a party at Kevin and Linda's new house. There was a guy there named Bradley. The last time I saw Bradley was about 20 years ago. He was a student at Eureka College who, I think, graduated the year before I got there. And as I understand it from the stories I was told, he and another student named Rodney were responsible for bringing about the demise of Greg Upton, my predecessor at Eureka, and so, in a way, what Bradley did resulted in my coming to Eureka College.

This fact in itself doesn't make me dislike Bradley, but the stories I heard about him and Rodney came mostly from Greg's friends. Greg was certainly not blameless; in fact, he really brought about his own demise. I don't know for sure that he had an affair with Rodney, and it's a long time ago, so the specific details aren't that important. But here's what made me figure out why I think Bradley is a sleaze:

1. He spent most of the party chatting with Mike and Carl, a gay couple, and I sensed his "connection" with them.
2. My gaydar is not faultless, but it's pretty well honed, and, well, let's just say that the needle was all the way pinned to the far end of the scale.
3. He has a wife back in Japan.
   

I've always had an intolerance for gay men who live in the closet and who take wives as disguises. I know that the pressures of society sometimes lead men to make bad choices in this regard, but I do not respect these choices or the men who make them.

With Bradley, it goes farther in part because of what happened before I got to Eureka College, but, hell, you don't judge people by what they did when they were young and stupid. It was the conversation I almost got into with him last night that helped me make up my mind that Bradley is a sleaze, the same sleaze he was back then.

I was talking with Bradley and Luke, Kevin's younger brother, who were students at EC at the same time, though Luke was maybe a couple of years younger. Luke was asking "Whatever happened to..." questions. When he asked about one guy named Jerry, Bradley said, "He has a partner," and went on to provide a little more detail, ending by saying, "He's still a Republican," to which Luke responded, "Well good for Jerry."

I said, "What's good about being a Republican?" And Bradley said something about how there are some of us who think the Republican party has the right solutions to problems. I responded that gay people should not be among those who think the party who wishes to deny them their basic civil rights has the solution to anything. Then Bradley made some comment about gay marriage and gay rights, and I said, this is a conversation I did not wish to get into, so could we please change the subject. He kept right on, so I excused myself.

I am so not interested in conversing with, or even being polite to, hypocrites like Bradley. It's one thing to suppress your sexuality. But his brand of covert homophobia disgusts me.

It was a fun party, though.

This morning I decided to take the bus to work so I could walk home, but because it was hot I didn't want to walk part way, as I sometimes do. So that means taking two buses. I walked the three blocks to the busstop, and as I was walking up the street I saw a bus go by. It could've been a bus returning to base, out of service, but I didn't know. So when I got to the busstop, it looked from the schedule that I just missed a bus. I decided to go ahead and walk, and I got halfway to the next busstop when I saw the bus coming. So I started running, but quickly realized I'd never make it in time.

Lo and behold, I hear a honk, and the driver stops the bus and lets me on between stops.

This felt like a good omen for the day.

It was a reasonably good day. I had a meeting to talk about transitioning my projects so I could move into my new role as Manager of Software Development, and that went better than I expected. It looks as though I'm going to be able to make the transition more-or-less on schedule.

Also, circumstances cleared some time off my schedule today, and I was able to get some planning done for next week's team meeting, my first with my new team, where I can lay out my vision. And I got some more positive feedback from some of the guys on the team. So I'm psyched, and can't wait for things to happen.

Healthwise, things are going great. I'm down 16 pounds so far, and my doctor told me that based on my HbA1c number, I might not have full-blown diabetes. The nurse-educator was so impressed with my glucose monitoring numbers and with my lifestyle changes that she cut me loose. I'm just testing two or three times a week.

Now if it just weren't so hot. Walking home was awful today. I was going to take a bus part of the way, but I just missed one, so I walked all the way, which was a good thing, but not a fun thing.

It was 89 in my house when I got home from work. I think it's supposed to be a little cooler tomorrow.

Well it's been a week since my diagnosis.

I've made what I think are some radical life-style changes with regard to diet and exercise. I've been walking a ton and eating healthy. I've already lost 10 lbs., which I understand is much quicker than it'll go from here on out, and I notice that my energy level is already improving.

I also got some good news with regard to my lab results. One of the numbers that hadn't come back was my HbA1c, which is supposed to be a good long-term indicator of blood glucose levels. Normal (non-diabetic) is between 4.0 and 6.0, and diabetics typically are well about 6.0. Mine was 5.3.

I went to see the nurse educator on Thursday, and she was very positive about this. She said we have caught this very early, and she confirmed what my doctor said, that there's a good chance we can control this with diet and exercise and I might be able to stop the medication.

She also started me on glucose monitoring, twice a day, before breakfast and one hour after dinner. The before breakfast part is easy, but I do not like having to stop what I'm doing an hour after dinner to do this. Last night I went to a concert and had a picnic first, and I didn't get it done. But the numbers have been consistently excellent so far.

Meanwhile, life at work is interesting. I have been interviewing for the Dev Manager position, a process that has been going on for quite a few weeks. Yesterday I was offered the position, but we are still needing to resolve some details before I'm ready to accept. I'm really excited to have the opportunity; I think I have some good ideas on how to make things better.

I'm worried about Mom. Her husband is not doing well at all. He's in the hospital with severe diarrhea, very low potassium, very high blood pressure, and now the latest is he appears to have a stomach infection. I think this could be very bad; if there's sepsis, he might not survive. Mom is looking at putting him into a rehab facility (assuming he does recover), and from there she hopes he might be able to come home, but it really doesn't sound to me like that's a reality. She just can't keep taking care of him if he doesn't recover from the diarrhea.

So life is interesting. Ups and downs. Stay tuned.

It's been so long since I've blogged that I'm sure the few people who came by here to check out my latest musings have long since gotten discouraged. That's okay, though. I was never writing for them anyway.

But shit happens, and sometimes that means wanting people to know what's going on so you can have a support system.

So this blog, which has been private up til now, is going to become public. And I'm making some vows right now that I hope I can get any readers who visit, either intentionally or by stumbling onto this page, to hold me to.

I went to the doctor on Friday for a physical. It had been a few years since my last physical, and at that time the doctor warned me about my cholesterol. For a while I was diligent about trying to exercise more, but I was never as consistent about it as I should have been. I also didn't watch my diet as carefully as I should have.

Well now the news is a lot worse. Not only has my cholesterol gotten worse, but I have diabetes.

So I'm now on three medications:

1. Metformin (aka Glucophage) - to control my blood sugar
2. Crestor - to lower my cholesterol
3. Lisinopril - an ACE inhibitor. The doctor said it's for my kidneys, and that it'll have the added benefit of keeping my blood pressure down.
   

Also, my blood pressure was 151/94. I think that was time-of-day and bad-news related, because two weeks ago it was 124/86, and I think it's always worse at the doctor's office than in real life.

My doctor also gave me referrals for a gastroenterologist (to have a colonoscopy - unrelated to the diabetes, just because I turned 50 this year and it's time), an ophthalmologist (for a diabetes screening, since this disease can damage the eyes), and a diabetic counselor, so I can get started on glucose monitoring and whatever else is necessary to manage the disease.

The good news is the numbers are not frighteningly bad. My doctor thinks I can control this through some lifestyle changes, and I think so too.

The other good news is that I'm HIV-, and my prostate appears to be normal and healthy.

So here are my vows:

1. Serious exercise (walking, bike-riding, elliptical glider, swimming or water aerobics, whatever works) at least five days a week.
2. Weight loss: two pounds a week for the next 25 weeks. That's 50 pounds total.
3. Use this blog to log my progress with entries at least once a week.

So...

On Friday morning when I weighed myself, I was 214 lbs. That's my starting weight.

I walked about 6 miles on Friday, about 3 miles yesterday, and about 4 miles today.

I've already lost some weight in two days, but I'm not going to record it yet because I know the first couple of days are typically more dramatic.

Yesterday at Fred Meyer I took my BP and it was 117/71.

My other goal is to get off all the meds within six months.

That's it for today. I'll be back. I promise.