Can I talk here about my DH's diabetes?
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| Wed, 04-09-2008 - 8:15pm |
Hi everyone!
I hope this is the correct venue to discuss this. If not I really apologize, please direct me elsewhere. Thanks! I am the spouse of a diabetic. I don't want to upset anyone with anything I have to say but I just really need a place where I can come to vent and get all of my feelings out in the open. I have tried talking to family and friends but they just give me that look like they want to understand but really don't and I don't want to keep talking to my DH about my concerns and fears.
Background - DH is 37, we have been married for 11 years, together for 15 and do not have children. He had diabetes when we met and at that point he was type II and on oral meds. I have always tried to be loving and supportive and read up on everything I could, educate myself as best as I could so I could be a good support system for him. I realized a long time ago that he has to want to take care of himself and I can't do it all for him. Believe me, I've tried!
He has been up and down with his diabetes, with his eating habits, tried every diet there is out there, we don't have junk in the house and he is about 75 pounds overweight. He does not check his sugar regularly. About 3 years ago, he was basically not taking good care of himself and wound up in the hospital with a reading of 500. He was hospitalized and put on insulin. He had injured himself and had an infection in his finger that ran through his whole body. It was a very scary time. I almost lost him.
Last year he woke up one morning and told me he was having very blurry vision and didn't "feel right". I knew something was not right and I called his doctor. We had to rush to the ER and it turns out he had macular edema (swelling) behind the eyes and bleeding. He had a steroid injection in one of his eyes and was put on so many different kinds of medications. This past January he underwent a trabeculectomy because the pressure in his eyes was way too high (it was over 40 - normal I understand is between 8-21). They cut his eye and had to make a hole to relieve some of the pressure and he now has permanent stitches in his eye and just found out from all of this that he has to have cataract surgery next week. The cataract is a result of all the medicines and the surgery. He cannot have a regular surgery because of the last procedure and they have to make a special lens for him and make another hole in the bottom of his eye. They are going to laser his other eye when this is all done.
This last situation really shook him up (or so I thought) and the doctors have urged him desperately to take care of his diabetes. He bought a new monitor and asked me to go out and buy and cook all low carb stuff. I did all of it. He was great for a week then went out with one of his friends (after having dinner) and told me he was very hungry so he wound up having two hot dogs, a big soft pretzel and a half of sandwich. I asked him tonight what his glucose reading was today and he just gave me a blank look and then admitted he has not been monitoring his sugar.
Then I see him the other night closing his eye and walking around the house and I ask him what he is doing and he says he has been "practicing just in case" and I'm like "Just in case of what???" He starts to go into this whole thing of do I know how many people live with sight in one eye and I just lost it, went in the other room and cried.
I am trying so hard to be positive and be there for him and it is very very difficult. I do not want to be that nagging annoying wife who mothers him. I don't want to sound like a broken record either but I really want my husband around for a long time. I want us to grow old together. He's a wonderful guy and my true soulmate. He is only 37 and I knew one day we'd have to go through this stuff but I didn't think so soon.
I have had endless talks with him, not talked to him, cried to him, I don't know what else to do and I know people say he has to do it himself and want it for himself but am I being selfish for wanting him to wake up already??? I am not sure how much more I can take. I can't sleep because every week it is something else. He hurt his hand again and it's not healing properly. I think about him losing his sight, getting injured and not recovering. I cannot stop thinking about this stuff. I don't know how to keep being strong and I don't want to sound like a selfish moron, I just really really need some help here. What if he can't see? What if he can't work? What do I do? I'm really feeling lost and totally alone on this one.

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Hi,
I am so sorry that you are having to go through this.
Cheryl has given you two options but I think there is a third option. If I were an advise columnist, my advise
Big, Big hugs to you! I am very sorry you are going through this. I just lost a grandmother in February to diabetes. She was a very bad diabetic and had a leg amputated about two years ago and was facing loosing her other leg very shortly. She got the stomach flu that has been going around and they think it either weakened her heart to where she had a heart attack or her diabetes spiked. She went in her sleep though so I find comfort in that.
My father was diagnosed diabetic a little over a year ago. He is trying to take care of his diabetes and I am proud of him. He watched my grandmother go through her ordeal and I don't think he wants to follow. The main reason he is doing good is because my step-mother is glucose intolerant and from her mother being diabetic (my grandmother who passed) learned how to cook, etc. and makes my father eat healthy. He is a truck driver so she packs his dinners, etc. for him. My mother was diagnosed a couple months ago with type II also. Her doctor hasn't really said much to her about what she needs to do but she knows she has to beat this. She is a breast cancer survivor also so I know she won't let diabetes get her. I have also been diagnosed as glucose intolerant. I am going to do my best to ensure that I do not become diabetic or at least hold it off as long as I can. Ultimately, your husband is going to have to be the one to decide he wants to take care of himself. Maybe his doctor would have some ideas of scaring the crap out of him even more. Take him to the morgue, etc. Have him watch a video of someone getting their leg amputated. Couldn't hurt to try scaring him tremendously. Hugs to you!!!!!
Little Bean will soon be here!

First I want to say thank you to everyone who has responded here.
I wonder if you could tell him that you love him TOO much to watch him 'hurt' himself by not taking care of himself.
Some people just get stuck in the denial stage of grief, others in the anger stage, and so on. Being diagnosed with a long term chronic potentially debilitating condition IS a reason for grieving - life as you knew it has changed radically and forever. It'll never be what it was (doesn't mean it'll be all bad but it WILL be different). Until anyone (whether the person diagnosed or a loved one/spouse) works through the denial, the anger, the fear, etc to the point of accepting and moving forward, all sorts of off-kilter stuff can happen. Some people get angry that their body 'betrayed' them. Others get so fearful they wall themselves off to avoid any possible problems (in the case of diabetes, someone might pick out a small handful of 'safe' foods and eat ONLY those foods). It sounds like both of you might do well to find counsel, together and/or separately, to work through all of this.
--Deb