Health scare leads to wake up call resulting in serious life changes.
Firstly, I want to say to all the friends Ive lost contact with over the past few months or have been distant from, I’m sorry, I’ve been dealing with some serious life changes. Maybe I should have leaned on you more but I hope you can forgive what may have seemed like me being flaky on you. Living with diabetes has been a terrible and great experience. Terrible because living with a chronic illness at only 36 years old is a total mind fuck and put me in a pretty dark place mentally, and great because its forced me to re-evaluate my life decisions. It’s crazy to me that, I used to be 400 pounds!!
Like, what the hell was I thinking? I had a blood sugar level of over 400 and an A1C of 13.9% (which can be fatal/cause blindness/strokes and all kinds of bad shit).
I’m truly blessed that it didn’t get so bad that I needed insulin. My doctors prescribed me about 6 different medicines to control my blood sugar. I seriously considered taking them but thanks to my aversion to pharmaceuticals and my mom’s advice against them, that I went the natural route with hard word and proper dieting. Cutting sodas, alcohol, red meat and a bunch of other crap out of my diet and exercise. I got blood and urine work done recently and I’m happy to say that not only have I dropped my sugar levels from 400+ to 110. My A1C went down from 13.9 to 6.5, and my kidney function is great.
The road ahead is long and I have some side effects from years of ignoring my health but the fact of the matter is that I’m healthy, I’m happy and God willing, I’ll have a long life.
I won’t be able to be the same wild and crazy Lance, that I was before but, I will certainly be a healthier one. Thanks to my friends, family and especially my mom, for supporting me through this trying time. I honestly have a bright outlook on the future. Oh, and I went from 400 to 204 lbs! The transformation has been real and profound. The most important lesson I’ve learned and yes, I know its cliche is that your health is your wealth. Seriously, all the money in world doesn’t mean shit if you’re fucked up health wise.
Also fuck pharmaceuticals! Notice how your doctors will put you on one million pills before even asking you what your diet and exercise is like? The human body has an amazing ability to heal itself if given the right food/water and exercise. I’m nothing and nobody special and I beat diabetes (a major killer of black people) by just dieting and exercising every day.
In closing my friends, I just want to express how great I feel and to encourage anybody reading this to take your health seriously. We may think we’re invincible because we’re young but life is real and shit comes at you fast. Take care of yourselves, your health and stay with us as long as possible. Hopefully I will.
Lance Spencer works as a technical engineer and he currently lives in San Diego, California.
