July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Results from health fair helped save a life (06/04/07)
As I See It
By By DIANA DOLECKI-
The Jay County Health Fair saves lives.
Like many local people, we attended the spring Health Fair at the high school and let them stab us and sample our blood. I had a huge bruise for about a week. My husband didn't. It didn't seem fair as the visit was my idea in the first place.
A couple weeks later we received papers in the mail with all sorts of strange letters and numbers that we didn't understand so we made appointments with the doctor to decode the results. I wasn't too worried. Sure, some of the results were a little high but they didn't seem to be too far out of the expected parameters.
I was wrong.
As a result of that one visit to the high school I can no longer bake in my own home. No more beating butter into submission. No more eating half the cookie dough before it makes it into the oven. No more mixer beaters dripping cake batter down my chin as I hold out the other beater to my husband.
I can still cook from scratch as processed foods are discouraged but what is the fun in preparing stuff loaded with nutrients instead of empty calories?
All this is because we now have a diabetic in the family. The American Diabetes Association estimates that there are 20.8 million people in this country who have diabetes. That is seven-percent of the population. Then it goes on to say that while an estimated 14.6 million have been diagnosed, the others are unaware they have the disease. As often as I read statistics like this, I always wonder how anyone knows how many people have the disease if they haven't been diagnosed with it.
Diabetes scares me worse than any other illness. I watched it transform my big, strong, scary and wildly intelligent grandmother into a pitiful little old lady who would search for a particular word and end up saying "peach pit" when she meant something else entirely.
Diabetics are at increased risk for heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, blindness, kidney failure, nervous system damage, foot problems and on and on and on. They recover from other illnesses and injuries less easily than non-diabetics. Then there are the famous amputations. It starts with a toe, then part of a leg, then the other part of the leg until the end.
One of my great-uncles lost a leg to diabetes. It just so happens that his name was Frank. When I was doing genealogy research I didn't realize that my mother had three uncles named Frank and I always thought the legless one was on the other side of the family. When I contacted the man I thought was his son, the guy assured me that his dad wasn't diabetic and retained both legs until he died.
Then there are the nightmares. The first few days after the diagnosis I had nightmares of amputated feet that kept detaching themselves from legs. It made it very difficult to walk. I would wake in a panic to find that everything was still attached. What a relief.
Statistics say that American Indians, Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans are at greater risk for diabetes. Is it something in the hyphen that contributes to it? Perhaps it has something to do with the super-sized, high-fat diet that is a staple in this country.
All the research I can find indicates that many of the dire consequences associated with diabetes can be avoided by keeping one's blood sugar levels under control. Before this all came about I thought that diabetics just had to worry about high blood sugar. Little did I know that low blood sugar is just as much a problem. The levels can fluctuate throughout the day and create havoc with the body.
I am glad this happened at the beginning of summer when fresh fruits and vegetables are easily found. The hot weather makes fat-laden high-calorie "comfort" foods unappealing. It is far easier to eat healthy foods in summer. I can even forgo baking as it heats up the kitchen.
Some people think that diabetics have to live on high-priced diabetic foods but the instructions the doctor gave us to follow stressed fresh foods. We are to avoid highly processed foods and do what the nutrition experts have been telling us all along.
By taking proper care of our bodies we can avoid many of the dire predictions and live long, healthy lives. It's all because of the Health Fair.[[In-content Ad]]
Like many local people, we attended the spring Health Fair at the high school and let them stab us and sample our blood. I had a huge bruise for about a week. My husband didn't. It didn't seem fair as the visit was my idea in the first place.
A couple weeks later we received papers in the mail with all sorts of strange letters and numbers that we didn't understand so we made appointments with the doctor to decode the results. I wasn't too worried. Sure, some of the results were a little high but they didn't seem to be too far out of the expected parameters.
I was wrong.
As a result of that one visit to the high school I can no longer bake in my own home. No more beating butter into submission. No more eating half the cookie dough before it makes it into the oven. No more mixer beaters dripping cake batter down my chin as I hold out the other beater to my husband.
I can still cook from scratch as processed foods are discouraged but what is the fun in preparing stuff loaded with nutrients instead of empty calories?
All this is because we now have a diabetic in the family. The American Diabetes Association estimates that there are 20.8 million people in this country who have diabetes. That is seven-percent of the population. Then it goes on to say that while an estimated 14.6 million have been diagnosed, the others are unaware they have the disease. As often as I read statistics like this, I always wonder how anyone knows how many people have the disease if they haven't been diagnosed with it.
Diabetes scares me worse than any other illness. I watched it transform my big, strong, scary and wildly intelligent grandmother into a pitiful little old lady who would search for a particular word and end up saying "peach pit" when she meant something else entirely.
Diabetics are at increased risk for heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, blindness, kidney failure, nervous system damage, foot problems and on and on and on. They recover from other illnesses and injuries less easily than non-diabetics. Then there are the famous amputations. It starts with a toe, then part of a leg, then the other part of the leg until the end.
One of my great-uncles lost a leg to diabetes. It just so happens that his name was Frank. When I was doing genealogy research I didn't realize that my mother had three uncles named Frank and I always thought the legless one was on the other side of the family. When I contacted the man I thought was his son, the guy assured me that his dad wasn't diabetic and retained both legs until he died.
Then there are the nightmares. The first few days after the diagnosis I had nightmares of amputated feet that kept detaching themselves from legs. It made it very difficult to walk. I would wake in a panic to find that everything was still attached. What a relief.
Statistics say that American Indians, Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans are at greater risk for diabetes. Is it something in the hyphen that contributes to it? Perhaps it has something to do with the super-sized, high-fat diet that is a staple in this country.
All the research I can find indicates that many of the dire consequences associated with diabetes can be avoided by keeping one's blood sugar levels under control. Before this all came about I thought that diabetics just had to worry about high blood sugar. Little did I know that low blood sugar is just as much a problem. The levels can fluctuate throughout the day and create havoc with the body.
I am glad this happened at the beginning of summer when fresh fruits and vegetables are easily found. The hot weather makes fat-laden high-calorie "comfort" foods unappealing. It is far easier to eat healthy foods in summer. I can even forgo baking as it heats up the kitchen.
Some people think that diabetics have to live on high-priced diabetic foods but the instructions the doctor gave us to follow stressed fresh foods. We are to avoid highly processed foods and do what the nutrition experts have been telling us all along.
By taking proper care of our bodies we can avoid many of the dire predictions and live long, healthy lives. It's all because of the Health Fair.[[In-content Ad]]
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