Type 2 Diabetes? Whatever.

A long time ago (about 2 years) in a car, I pushed on a mucous cyst on the base just under my fingernail. It had been there for ages. How long? Look, the details don’t matter. But what does matter is that it had gone from just sort of being there, doing its thing. To being a little squishier than before.

We both know what that means.

Yep. I played with it. Because, well, I could. So I did.

And then it burst. Liquid came rushing out like a pee you have held in for 4 hours and now it is time to set it free. “Wonderful. I wonder if that will now go away” I thought to myself. Not knowing what was about to happen next.

I could leave this here, but I feel like you want to know.

Well. What happened next was nothing for 24 hours. And then, my finger started to hurt. Then it got a bit red. And a bit swollen. The whole finger. Bend it? No chance. Squeeze nutcrackers on it? Hell no. Flick the love spuds of a lion with it? Of course not. You never do that.

I started taking some pain killers. Because it’ll go away on it’s own. Right? It’ll just go away? With pain killers?

It didn’t.

A few days later I went to a pharmacy about some stronger drugs. “You may want to go to the hospital”. “Do they have better drugs?” “That is infected”.

Dammit.

So to the hospital I went. While there, I got asked questions. “Age?” 40 something “Weight?” Ha! Nice try. “When did it start?” Yes, it did! “Are you diabetic?” “Not according to my last blood test”

Shortly after, I had a bit of a moment. One of those “Hey! I am just going to collapse over here, ignore me”. They all panic. I have a huge sweat appear. They pin prick my finger (not that one fortunately) and do a check. “You are diabetic”. “Who. the. WHAT. now?”

I won’t go into the bit where they operate twice on my finger, the first time ripping my fingernail off, cutting down my finger and sucking the infection out.

OK maybe I just told you and now you know. Anyway, they did that twice. Not the nail part, it just doesn’t grow back that quickkly.

And I was sent on my merry way home a few days later with some epic drugs. Thanks UK NHS!

At that point, I was in the Diabetes system. Nurses fawned over me. Dr’s wanted to get to know me. I ate metformin for breakfast and dinner. Life stresses (we aint going into them, you would need therapy afterwards) caused high blood pressure. My cholesterol level got higher. More drugs!

2 years later, I had my checkup. “Your HBA1C is very high. We need to do something about it”.

Crap. “Rightio skipper, what are the choices?”

“You have 3. The first is more drugs. They make you pee a lot.” “No thanks”

“The second is you go away and completely change your diet on your own” “Hmm. OK. But, I live alone. This might be fun. I like a challenge. What is the third?”

“The third is that you go on a total meal replacement (TMR) for 36 weeks. The first 12 are completely removing all food and do a rapid weight loss meal plan. The second 12 weeks are adding small amounts of food in. The final 12 weeks are checking if you can continue with the diet introduced in the second 12 weeks” “So you could have put that into the phrase – Total hell on earth – and I would have understood.” “yes.” “Fine. Lets do that.”

And here we are.

Today, the “starter pack” arrived. I got a free shaker! That is where the excitement ended. In the pack are:

6 shakes to try. Chocolate (I bet it aint!), Strawberry, Banana, Vanilla, Mango, Latte. Yu…..m.

2 soups to try. Chicken and Vegetable.

How utterly exciting.

I will be starting the main course on the 9th September, but will be trying these from tomorrow for a couple of days, just to see what happens. And then this weekend I am eating everything possible.

Like a last meal.

Before I enter purgatory.