Blogs on Life
Life is an adventure which changes regularly for me, giving me much material for writing.
Part 9—Let’s Talk Weight…and Diabetes
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes My secret—I’m a Health Nazi! Today there is a stigma if one is overweight in the USA. We have fashion models who look anorexic and probably are. We’ve lived through Nouveau Cuisine which is barely 300 calories of food for a meal…to gorging only to throw up all we’ve eaten, a condition called bulimia. There are also anorexic young women and men today who think they are fat. It is fair to say that America has a problem with food and weight control. Today we’re told we have more obese people...
read morePrejudice Unveiled in – A Buffalo in the House – by Rosen
“The civilization of the Indian is impossible while the buffalo remains upon the plains….I would not seriously regret the total disappearance of the buffalo from our western prairies….” Columbus Delano, US Secretary of the Interior, under President Ulysses S. Grant, from his 1883 Annual Report. Veryl Goodnight and her husband Roger, in the year 2000, began raising a bull buffalo calf they named Charlie, from a few days of age to his untimely death at age three. Rosen, in his book A Buffalo in the House, captures Charlie’s story as...
read morePart 8—Let’s Talk Exercise…
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes Disclaimer: I am not a health care professional or a personal coach. I am an untrained lay person who reads. What I write is how I understand what I’ve read and what I believe is the way it worked for my mother. As a society we’ve heard the mantra—Gotta Exercise! So here is my attempt to explain why my mother’s walking—which started at 5 minutes per day and over two years grew to 45 minutes—helped her get off of her diabetes medications. Before she came to live with me she’d lived a sedentary life...
read morePart 7—What are some reasons why these methods worked…
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes Disclaimer: I’m not a medical professional of any sort—I just wanted my momma to live longer and what I write shows how desperate I was to figure it out so we could make good choices. During my learning phase, after my mom came to live with us, I discovered that insulin (necessary to break down sugar) needed to hold hands with the cell wall in a very specific place. This same place is where the cell wall also held extra fat. If insulin could not hold hands with the cell wall because fat was...
read morePart 6—What is Wrong With the Daily Food Journal…
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes The world has changed since 2001 when I wrote this document for my siblings when Mom visited. And I have also learned a whole lot more. I would have added to the list of Don’t—No GMO’s. I personally believe they destroy the digestive tract microorganisms, and they harm the environment. This is just for starters. On the list in Part 4 are several products that today would almost certainly be GMO. Soybeans or any soybean product would be GMO as would corn and sugar, unless the sugar were from pure...
read morePart 5—Parenting your Parent…
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes I guess if we live long enough we will parent our parent(s). My brothers and I were blessed with a wonderful woman as our mother. She was loving, caring, strict, but also gave us freedom. Mom encouraged independence in all of her children. She did not try to keep us in the nest, rather allowed us to fly when we were able. Yet, she was home if we needed and ready to listen. However, there came a time when Mom did not seem right mentally. We had all left home involved with our own lives. Whenever...
read morePart 4—A Daily Food Journal…
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes From time to time mom would visit my brothers in Indiana. At first she would go and enjoy herself. Then news came to me from my brother’s wives that she would eat all the sweets in sight at family gatherings. The following day she would be in a stupor as her body dealt with the aftermath of a sugar over-load and a body which could no longer handle this abundance. That is when I discovered diabetics CRAVE sugar. It is unnatural how even one teaspoon can curb the edge of that craving. But then the...
read morePart 3—Mom’s Daily Regime in Kansas…
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes Her Daily Health Regime: 1. Each morning, after her mid-morning snack, she would walk around the inside of my home. She used her cane for balance and walked at a pace she could maintain without huffing and puffing. She set the microwave timer and gladly sunk into a kitchen chair when her five minute ordeal was done. 2. Each day she would eat six times, three full meals and three snacks. Most of the food she ate was unprocessed or minimally processed. We used diabetic suggestions for portion sizes....
read morePart 2—Becoming a Health Nazi…
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes At first I turned to printed literature to read all I could about diabetes. I didn’t find much. The literature I found was only about managing diabetes. We went to appointments with different medical specialists in Kansas to have her health evaluated. I asked question after question seeking the whole picture. Mom and I followed the suggestions of the internist, the podiatrist, and the endocrinologist. What we heard from each doctor was “Your mom has diabetes. It is controllable, not curable. Here...
read morePart 1—Fear is a Powerful Motivator…
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes At turn of the century, from 1999 to 2000, my father had a severe health crisis. The result was I spent six weeks away from home getting dad through his hospital stay. I helped my parents move in with my brother and his family who lived 600 miles away. This meant closing down their home moving only essentials, with more to be sorted and moved later, and helping my parents through the transition. While my dad was in the hospital in Tennessee, recovering from a severe congestive heart failure...
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