DanicaX’s BodyBlog

til I’m off probation. Horray! Kidding. Kidding. People think I’m serious when I say that; Perhaps b/c I’m such a serious person. Note: that was a lie. Sorry I lied. haha! No, I’m not sorry at all! See…never serious. One time at the gym this guy asked me, "how come I never see you out?" I said, "well, it’s kinda hard when I’m on probation." The look on his face was great! It totally threw him off. When he found out I was joking, he started laughing hysterically and wouldn’t stop. Then, I started laughing b/c he was totally over-laughing. It really wasn’t that funny. Ha..then about 30 minutes later he was walking by me: "hahaha! On probation! hahahaha!!!" Come to think of it, he may have been on drugs. Lesson: Say NO to drugs!!!
 
Really, though…I’m counting down the days to the Arnold!  I’ve always wanted to go and this will be my first time so I’m excited. Yes, I cleared it w/ my probation officer. I ALWAYS play by the rules (see note on being serious above). Plus, my nephew, BIGPREMO, is going. I’m looking forward to being surrounded by greatness that weekend! Sorry, G, you ain’t cutting it. This is what G did to his favorite monkey…he tore all the stuffing out and then sat there looking at it like he didn’t know what happened.
 
So today I went to the eye Dr. I was in the waiting room. The only seat open was by this guy who was in a wheel chair sitting in front of the chairs. I noticed he was alone and his right leg was amputated just below the knee. I looked at him (he was really close to me) and he asked me if I’d go down this hallway (he pointed), take a right and see if the eye clinic was open. So I go down the hallways and looked to the right. There was nothing there. He was an older guy and at this point I was wondering if he was cognitively deficient in some way; it was too early to tell really. Earlier I thought I heard him tell someone, "I wonder if the doctor is here." What he really said was, "wonderful doctors here." Anyways, so I go back and asked, "you said on the right?" He said yes. I go back again thinking I was maybe crazy and didn’t see it. There was a door on the left so I opened it and asked these ladies if they were an eye clinic. They said they only filled prescriptions and that there used to be an eye clinic on the right, but it moved to another location. So I go relay the info and the guy goes, "Oh, that’s right. They moved down the street. Thanks for checking. What are you here for?" We started talking and here’s what I found out about my little waiting room friend:

He was diagnosed with Type II diabetes when he was 35, but never took care of himself properly when he found out. I asked if he used to be heavier when he was younger and he said no, but there was a small grocery store when he was a boy that his mother had a charge account there. He’d go in after school and get candy for him and all his buddies and charge it. That’s when it was $.01. I don’t know if excessive sugar intake as a kid is linked to type II diabetes later and poor glycemic control. I’ll have to look into it. Anyways, his eyesight started failing and he was seeing this eye Dr (no pun intended) who he raved about. He says he was totally blind when he started going there, but now he could see. He said he couldn’t read, but he could see the tv in the room, but not the faces on it. Then I learned more. He was going to a podiatrist to get his toenails trimmed, which is recommended for people with diabetes. Well, the podiatrist had also cut a callus off his foot. It then got infected, he ultimately had to get his leg amputated b/c of it. That was 6 months ago.
 
Then while in the hospital after the amputation, he had some procedure done (I can’t recall what it was), but they told him that there was a chance his kidneys would fail b/c of his diabetes. Well, they did. So, now he is also going through dialysis. My brain was getting overloaded at this point. When I was asking him about the prosthetic leg he had mentioned earlier, he said he would be walking by now, but when he was in physical therapy there was a PT there who he says put this sleeve on his leg to hold the bandages on better. He said she was really rough and put it on too aggressively, and in doing so she created more wounds around his wound basically.  So, 6 months later he is still waiting for those wounds to heal before he can even get fitted for the prosthetic.
 
The punches just kept coming it seemed. I asked if his wife (he’s been married for 50 years) brought him and he said no, that "the van" brought him. The same transportation van takes him back and forth to dialysis everyday and charges $20 each way. It’s 5 blocks from his house. That is crazy. He said his son was coming to pick him up after his appointment. He worked with his son for 20 years in his law office and they were going to meet some clients a few hours away after he picked him up. He kept saying how he’s really lucky his son helps him and his wife has been so good to him, how the eye doctors were so great. After all that he’s gone through in the last 6 months, most people would be down, depressed, negative, angry. He wasn’t. He was so grateful for the people in his life and didn’t have a bad word to say about anything. I’m thankful that I had the opportunity to sit next to that guy and experience such a great attitude. That was the only open seat, too. Very interesting, indeed.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 7:22 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.