| Hey, does anybody out there have | | | | and no bread! Gone were the days of freedom |
| diabetes?Well, if you're shaped like a pear | | | | where I could eat fried pork chops, biscuits |
| and you're from the South where the three | | | | and gravy, mashed potatoes, wash it all down |
| main food groups are flour, sugar and lard, | | | | with a huge glass of sweet tea (with real |
| (pronounced shortening for you Northern folk) | | | | sugar) and finish it all off with an entire |
| then you have a good chance of developing | | | | chocolate cake topped with a half gallon of |
| it.It ain't no picnic, and about as | | | | vanilla ice cream.No! I even had to eat my |
| aggravating as a loose tooth.I wasn't always | | | | weeds and fruit from a small plate about the |
| round. I was a very skinny child, all hair | | | | size of a silver dollar. Gone was the |
| and eyeballs. I have naturally curly hair | | | | macaroni and cheese, the cornbread and beans, |
| and my mama refused to let me cut it until I | | | | the fried potatoes, the overflowing plate and |
| was thirty or there abouts. You could have | | | | the sweet, sweet tea (with real sugar).If you |
| drawn big round eyes on a rag mop and stood | | | | need a good laxative, try Splenda. The first |
| us up side by side and we would have been | | | | time I tried it I was amazed. My stomach |
| twins.I ate what everyone else ate, but I | | | | started to make noises that sounded like a |
| stayed skinny, all the way through school and | | | | volcano was getting ready to erupt. And talk |
| up until my fourth marriage. I've always felt | | | | about flatulence! I tooted with each step I |
| that fat people were happy people. My sister | | | | took. And these weren't quite little poots |
| remarked on my weight gain and told me to get | | | | either. It sounded like thunder. It rattled |
| miserable for a change. "I swear , if you get | | | | the windows. My poor Hubby. He was so |
| any happier you won't be able to fit through | | | | patient through it all.However, since I was |
| the kitchen door."Well, turns out she was | | | | feeling a lot better after the medication |
| right. I was pushing against 200 pounds this | | | | started working and my glucose levels were |
| time last year. I kept feeling sick, and | | | | beginning to return to normal, I have stayed |
| short of breath. My eyes didn't work right | | | | with the diet. It hasn't been easy. Sometimes |
| and I had about as much energy as a dead | | | | I get so hungry I could eat a pile of |
| house cat. All of this combined was a pretty | | | | dirt...if it was mixed with lard and sugar |
| good sign that I needed to see a doctor. I | | | | and shaped like a biscuit.Oh, and I don't |
| did. He did the blood work. He told me I had | | | | look extremely happy anymore. I weighed this |
| developed type 2 diabetes.The normal range | | | | morning and I am down to 129 pounds. I look |
| for the hemoglobin A1c (a simple lab test | | | | like my rag mop once again.Think I'll get us |
| that shows the average amount of sugar (also | | | | both dressed up, draw her a pair of big round |
| called glucose) that has been in a person's | | | | eyes and go have our pictures taken. I'll be |
| blood over the last 3 months) should be | | | | the one on the left with the short |
| around 7 or below. Mine was 14.3. My blood | | | | hair.Leeuna Foster is a Marketing Strategist, |
| sugar had been at a constant level of 400 for | | | | Author and Poet. She has been writing for two |
| the past several months.I was immediately | | | | decades and her short fiction and poetry have |
| handcuffed, taken into custody and sentenced | | | | won several national and regional awards. |
| to a life of green weeds, vegetables, fruit | | | | |