I Don’t Want To Go Blind

hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and this particular video is a little
bit different from other videos that
I’ve done in this one-a-day video thing
that I’ve been doing the challenge this
year
I had a bit of
a bit of an experience on Monday I went
to Costco
that wasn’t the experience but I went to
Costco to get my eyes exam and you know
the background is is that I have type-2
diabetes
I found this out one night when I was on
the air my radio show my national show
on XM and Sirius and on the stations
that I was on used to take place from
7:00 until 10:00 at night and around
7:30 at night on a Friday and I had to
think it was I was interviewing mr.
cranky who was a very funny guy who was
a movie reviewer that hated everything
and I asked him a question about halfway
through the hour that I was interviewing
him asked him a question he answered it
and when he was finished he didn’t hear
anything and he was like hello are you
there
did I kill you with my answer I had
passed out on the console just facedown
on the console at the time I weighed 380
pounds 385 something like that
and the reason I passed out on the air
just sitting there and just clunk I
found out about two hours later when we
went to the emergency services the quick
the quick you know Clinic place not the
emergency room at the hospital and they
took a look at my blood sugar and it was
eight hundred plus it was crazy and
you know it’s not that I didn’t know
there was something wrong with me you
know I was thirsty all the time and I
was you know all of the difference if
you don’t know what the the different
symptoms are of type 2 diabetes you can
google it and make it I don’t want to
turn this into a hade I have type 2
diabetes and you should know about this
but at the time this was like 2000
mid-2000s I then spent the next 18
months losing about 160 pounds which I
did and I’m kind of around that weight
right now I found a few of them that I’d
lost I found a few of those pounds but
not many and what didn’t happen though
was that I didn’t change much about my
eating patterns I did for a while and
then it got to be you know I serve
better food and I really love food and I
can figure out what to do so I went from
my eye exam as I do every year around
this time and the doctor who’s really
lovely her name’s dr. Lee she’s like
last couple of years like you know I’m
looking at your eye is it gonna be
careful we’re gonna take a you know just
keep watching this you don’t it’s not
gonna he’s not bad now but you know you
just want to watch this this year this
is what she said to me she said look at
this now look at last year see a
difference I did I saw a difference she
said if you don’t fix what you’re doing
with your type-2 diabetes
you’re gonna go blind it’s not going to
be reversible right now it’s reversible
but there’s been a big degradation
between last year and this year and now
it’s no longer an option I mean she
scared the crap out of me right
and so I ordered my glasses I was fairly
upset I ordered my glass my new glasses
she said look at your prescription your
prescription is 50% worse than last
year’s what does that tell you
so then I came home
had a really good cry
and I took my I didn’t like testing it
hurts
I took my blood sugar for the first time
in God six months and it was in the 350
range which isn’t good not good at all
and I
I had a good cry and then I went through
the house and this was before I taught a
class on Monday night it’s like three or
four hours before that I went through
the house and I got rid of everything
that was a sweet you know something
sugary or something that was high in
carbohydrates everything gone
I took the boxes of packaged goods the
next day to the forget the name of the
place where you take not goodwill but
like that at the top of my Street anyway
they said you know some of these
packages have expired like in 2012 we’re
not going to take those so some of it
had to be pitched but the point was I
went to Ralph’s and God the things I
should have been getting all along
because I don’t want to go blind so I
got salad greens and I got fresh Turkey
and I got you know pumpkin seeds and and
mandarin oranges and you know
Annie’s soups that are not highly
processed and don’t have high
carbohydrates I know exactly what I need
to do my endocrinologist has been
telling me for years that I know what to
do
my a once II was at the top of the the
charts
and
not only do I not want to go blind I
don’t want to lose any toes or fingers I
don’t want to lose any feet or any hands
I don’t want to have a heart attack I
want to be with you at least through the
end of the year because I I have these
videos that I have to do and starting on
Monday night you know I had a salad in
the in the refrigerator and I grabbed
that and I started testing and I ate the
right foods and I’m still doing my yoga
and I’m adding more to that on Tuesday
my blood sugar was still around 280 then
on Wednesday you need to take it first
thing in the morning and then you take
it at night in the morning on Wednesday
it was a little bit better on Thursday
my morning fasting blood sugar was 118 I
believe 116 and then Friday morning
which was a couple days ago and this is
my this is my meter
I’m going to show you exactly what my
blood sugar was
Friday morning after just doing three
days worth of stuff my blood sugar was
94
94 after three days
all this time all this time I could have
been well on my way to fixing this but
instead I was
not paying attention to my health like
it’s okay yeah my fingers tingled my
toes you know I gotta I gotta wear
glasses when I look at things and you
know who I mean everybody my age has to
do that right right
I’m telling you if you are in my
position and you have type 2 diabetes
you can change things and it doesn’t
take a long time to do it
I have had really great food I’ve gone
out to eat a couple of times and I’ve
made really great choices and my
commitment is to keep doing that so all
of these videos that I’ve been doing
with you about getting started in habits
that stick and I all of a sudden not
just in my professional life but in my
personal life I need those things
and so I am going to make another
commitment to you for this year not a
commitment to you per se it’s a
commitment to me
and that is that I’m going to use
everything that I’ve been sharing with
you that I’ve been using in my
professional life about habit-forming
and stick-to-itiveness and motivation
and all of those things and I’m going to
use them to stay alive and I hope that
if you’re in my position
you do the exact same thing
think about it 72 hours 96 hours from
really destructive levels of sugar in my
body
to
[Music]
levels I’ve never experienced that I’m
aware of is at least since I’ve been
testing ten twelve years I’ve never been
below 150 that I can remember and now
I’m consistently in the normal range of
normal range by the way is 70 to 114
somewhere in there you want to be when
you’re either doing fasting glucose
levels or two hours after your last meal
levels those are the times that I test
and I would go to my rent
endocrinologist to make excuses about
why I wasn’t testing about why I wasn’t
compliant
and apparently it took being threatened
with going blind for me to actually do
something about it
so I don’t want to go blind
and I also don’t want to cry right now I
want you to be safe I want you to be
healthy I want you to understand that
this can be fixed if you have type 1
diabetes congenital diabetes I am feel
so bad for you I mean you have had to
live your whole life with this
if you have type-2 diabetes and it’s not
too far gone
you can make a difference in a matter of
days that’s how fast I’m telling you
please do it tell me what your
experience has been like wherever you’re
watching this video please leave me a
comment below about your health and
about this maybe people in your life
that you have that are doing facing this
sort of thing
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there I’m David H Lawrence the 17th I so
appreciate you watching and I will talk
to you tomorrow.