A lot can happen in three months.
In late May I was diagnosed with type two diabetes and weighed in at 164 kilos. I was so ashamed of myself. The fact that I had let myself get to this point was unacceptable. I made a promise to myself, my wife and my children that I would do better. That I would get better. That I would work harder than I have ever worked before and get my health in order. Over the past 90 days, I have • lost 14.5 kilos (nearly 5 kilos a month) • lost 10.5 cm off my chest • 9.5 cm off my waist • 8 cm off my stomach As a result of this I am no longer a diabetic. I kicked Diabetes to the curb in 3 months. 3 FUCKING MONTHS! It was not easy (for anyone) and there were plenty of meltdowns and tears. There are actually a few tears rolling down my cheeks as I type this. The screen is a liltte blurry dna I cnat see wtha I am tipying that wele. Srory. Without getting too sciency or medical on you, the easiest way to explain what has happened to me is this. A diabetes diagnosis is determined by the levels of glucose in your blood cells. If the number is over 50 - you have type 2 diabetes. End of story. In May I was at 82. 82! Someone who doesn’t have diabetes will be between 1-40. From 41-50 is what is called the ‘pre-diabetic’ range. If you are in that range you don’t have diabetes but if you don’t start considering making some changes, you will most likely end up with type 2 diabetes. So, in late May, I was a full-blown type 2 diabetic, no question about it. I mean, 82! Good god! I was put on a 90-day prescription of Metformin (a medicine to help regulate my blood sugar levels) and my only goal while I was on that 90-day prescription was to eat healthier, eat less and to exercise daily. After a doctor’s appointment yesterday, the glucose levels in my blood cells are sitting at 43. 43! Now, for the simpleton friends that I have; 43 is a hell of a lot lower than 82 (which where I was sitting in May) It is at the bottom end of the pre-diabetic range of 41-50. I still need to take Metformin to help me get from the pre-diabetic range to the non-diabetic range, but I am no longer “medically” a diabetic. My doctor was totally dumbfounded. He was baffled. He said to me; “I have never seen results like this after 90 days. This is unbelievable, lee. How have you done this. What did you do”?! **Lee starts crying** “It’s actually been really hard, man”. “Oh so you’ve been dieting quite hard have you”? “No.” “Oh, well what have you done, because this is amazing, Lee”. “Well, the first month was incredibly hard but I knew that if I could train my body to eat less and eat healthier then it would get easier, and it did. All I’ve been doing is eating smaller, healthier and exercising daily”. **Doctor laughs and gives me a high five** “Well done, Lee. This is really amazing. Do you know what this means? The enormity of this? I was expecting you to be somewhere in the 70’s. Not the bloody 40’s and the low 40’s at that. You’re my STAR pupil”. “Thanks, yeah I’m pretty chuffed. All I could hear over the past three months were your words “This is 100% curable by weight loss, Lee” So I got my shit together and I lost some weight. “Well, the way you’re going you won’t even be ‘pre-diabetic’ soon and you’ll be able to come off the Metformin altogether, because there is no reason for you to be on it if you’re not a diabetic. He praised me some more, smiled a genuine smile and sent me on my way. He was proud of me. I was proud of me. I had to go to the chemist to get another 90-day prescription of metformin and as I was waiting outside the Swanson chemist, I saw the same white plastic chairs that I sat and cried on with Nikita in May when I was first diagnosed. This time I sat on those chairs with Pearl Jam blasting in my headphones and cried tears of happiness. Happy to be sitting on those chairs nearly 15 kilos lighter and in better shape than I was 90 days ago. Happy that I had done so well. Happy that I could go home and tell my children that ‘Daddy’s not sick’ anymore. Happy to get home and see the smile on my wife’s face once I’ve told her that I’m not a diabetic anymore. Happy that the only person who was responsible for these results was me. I don’t know if anyone has been helped through reading these blogs. I am sure that most of you have had a few good laughs and at times, read shit that you wish you hadn’t. Regardless of how you relate to me and these pieces of writing I want to leave you all with some encouraging words. Don’t ever let someone tell you that you aren’t good enough. That you can’t do something or that you aren’t in control of your life. The only person you have to answer to and be accountable to is you. You are in control of your life – If you don’t like an aspect of it – Change it! If there is something about your body or lifestyle that is getting you down, recognise it, own it and deal with it before it becomes something that you can’t control. Here is an excerpt from my very first blog entry back in May. Anyway, back to the DIABETE’S. FUCK! My doctor told me that it’s not the worst thing in the world and that it is 100% curable by weight loss. I AM UNDER NO ILLUSION THAT THIS DIAGNOSIS IS THE RESULT OF ME BEING SUCH A FAT FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT. It’s all on me! I own it and I’m gonna change it! I owned it. I changed it. It’s all on me. Fuck you, diabetes.
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Most of the time my favourite place in the world is the smallest room in the house. I love nothing more than to hit the bathroom in the mornings and sit there on my phone until my legs go numb or until my wife starts yelling that she needs help with the kids and the morning routine. Most often it’s the latter. Monday night, however that bathroom felt like it was going to be my tomb. HOLY SHIT. I was prepping my bowel for the colonoscopy I was to have the following day. I tell you right now, I was a lot happier not knowing about these damn ‘GLYCO PREP’ sachets. They’re a hospital grade laxative and good golly miss molly do they work. I had to mix two 70g sachets in with 2 litres of water. Lemon flavour supposedly. Bullshit it was lemon flavour, more like cod liver oil mixed with the sweat from a female wrestler with a yeast infections underwear, with the tiniest fucking hint of lemon as an aftertaste. It was absolute arse. I would rather let a fat midget spit in my face than EVER have to drink that shit again.
Long story short; I was smashing out bum wees every 5 or 10 minutes for about three hours or so. TO make matters worse I wasn’t allowed to eat anything from 12pm Monday, until after my procedure, either. So, on top of shitting through the eye of a needle for 3 hours, I was also incredibly hungry. I was however, allowed to drink clear fluids like tea, herbal tea, coffee (with no milk), juice, water and soup. SOUP. THANK FUCK!!! Nikita shot up the road and grabbed me some Chicken Noodle soup………. Mmmmmm Noodle Soup (for the F.R.I.E.N.D.S fans) I was all set to eat some and then aw the noodles in there and decided against it as I didn’t want noodles showing up on camera during my colonoscopy. They’d know that I broke the rules and may have sent me home because my bowel wasn’t in the condition it should have been in for the procedure (I don’t know how they work). In the end I got a chicken noodle sachet from a packet of Yum Yum’s and smashed that in some boiling water and had it like a sort of chicken flavoured cup of tea. That got me thinking. I’m not much of a hot drink kinda guy. I’ll have maybe 3 or 4 hot drinks a year (coffee and tea etc). But I would definitely smash back a cup of gravy. Would you? Think about it. A cold morning or afternoon and you’re also a little peckish – hey presto a delicious cup of gravy. Drinkable gravy, not lumpy KFC kinda shit. I reckon I’m on to something, there… I woke up to my 5:15am alarm the next day as a I had to drink another litre of that god damn ‘Arse Juice’ between 5 and 6am. I jumped in the shower and slugged back a few glasses in between pit scrubs. For some reason the shower made it better. Weird. Actually, not weird at all. Anyone that has the experience of a ‘Shower Beer’ knows what the fuck’s up! I woke up the family, took 4 high powered bum wees shits and then watched them eat their breakfast. Bastards! We all piled into the car and headed to the hospital. It was pissing down with rain as I moseyed my way into the reception area. “Hey, howzit going? I’m here for a 7:45 colonoscopy appointment” “Good morning, you’ll be in the surgical ward. Head down that way and follow the windows round to the left and go straight through the doors”. “Thanks” I got given one of those hospital backless gowns and a nice housecoat/dressing gown to wear. I tried to steal one of those house coats but was unsuccessful. Anyway, they whacked an IV line in me and sent me off to the waiting room. I was second on the list of people to get their colons examined. YAY. The first was an elderly Asian man. He seemed thrilled to be getting it done. He kept looking over at me and smiling and nodding at me. It was a “You know what’s going on here ay, pal. You’re getting one done, too. Kind of nod. Nice. NOW THE NEXT PART OF THIS BLOG IS QUITE GRAPHIC AND A LITTLE EMBARRASSING FOR ME. SO PLEASE, READ ON AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION. ALSO. I HAVE BEEN INCREDIBLY OPEN AND HONEST IN THESE AND I’D LIKE TO THINK THAT I’M NOT BEING SLAGGED OFF OR LAUGHED AT BY ANYONE. I got called into the operating theatre and was told to lie in the foetal position on my left-hand side with my knees to my chest. ON goes the KY-Jelly. Cold. “Here we go, Lee” the surgeon said and then BOOM. Colonoscope went in. It wasn’t too bad. It was more uncomfortable than sore. I was watching the screen as the camera went up further and further and began to spray water and air inside my rectum and colon. It was quite interesting to watch. I kept asking the surgeon questions about what was going on and he kept giving me short answers as if to say “shut the fuck up, pal. I’m trying to work, here”. I found that a little rude, I mean sure, this guy does this every day of his working life, but this is the first time I have ever seen the inside of myself and I was curious god dammit. After about 15 minutes the colonoscopy was over and, in all honesty, – It wasn’t bad. It didn’t hurt at all and was over very quickly. Men are put off by these kinds of things and chicken out because ‘it’s a man putting something up your bum’. GROW UP. The worst part about getting a coloscopy is having to drink those fucking laxatives…. After the colonoscopy the surgeon said to me “Let’s band off those internal haemorrhoids while we’re here, shall we” I foolishly said yes. The next instrument he put up my bum was FUCKING HUGE! I swear to god it was dildo sized. Oh, and just so you know ‘Banding’ is a procedure similar to how sheep lose their tails. They put a very tight rubber band around the base of the haemorrhoid and then after a few days, like a sheep tail; they just fall off. ANYWAY, this fucking thing he whacked up my arse was MENTAL! I whinged like a little bitch when it went up there and I said “Oh, fuck that. That’s not cool!!! Shit that’s sore” Then the nurse came over to me and started stroking my head and face. STROKING MY FACE. What the fuck!? She kept whispering in my ear – “Just breathe, Lee. Nice and slow”. That was even weirder. I don’t know if that this nurse just offered that as part of her consolation package or if she just wanted to make this as uncomfortable as possible. Then (and this is where shit gets really grim) I felt a hot sharp burning sensation run from the base of my penis right up to my nob. Again, I let out a massive yelp. “Oh, fuck I felt that. What the fuck was that”? “What was what? What did you feel”? “I don’t know what it was, but I felt that in my dick! Don’t do that again”. Two seconds later, it happens again, and I react just as unfavourably as I did the first time. “Oh, for fuck sake! What are you doing”? “It’s O.K, Lee. We’re all done”. I stand up and waddle out of the room. Actually, before I get into my recovery. THE DRUGS THEY GAVE ME WERE THE SHITTIEST FUCKING DRUGS I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE. They did nothing. I was supposed to have been sedated and unable to walk unassisted etc. I was completely coherent throughout the whole thing and felt fine. I have taken tramadol and felt more sedated than I was lying on that table with 5 feet of colonoscope inside me. I was incredibly disappointed with that aspect of the procedure. Completely and totally let down. I was given a ham sandwich, two cookies and a glass of water to get stuck into while the nurses went to fetch my wife who was still in the waiting room. Nikita came into the recovery ward and shit was I glad to see her! She gave me a cuddle and asked about how it all went. I told her what went down and that I was a little sore from it all and that I needed to go to the toilet. She walked with e to the toilet and I started to go wees. BLOOD. SO much blood. I freaked the fuck out and went out to the nurse’s station and told them that I was urinating blood and to go and grab that surgeon because I wasn’t pissing blood 3o minutes ago so obviously something went wrong during the colonoscopy. A lovely nurse went and grabbed the surgeon and he came and told me that it was most likely due to the local anaesthetic needle that they used when he banded off those haemorrhoids going “in too far” and rupturing something in that part of me. He Instructed me to drink some more water and go for another wee and if it starts off ‘bloody’ and then runs clear then there is no real cause for concern. Oh, and before he walked off whistling to himself, he said “Sorry about that”. Again, I would like to reiterate that the colonoscopy was 100% fine and gave me no grief at all. Sadly, it was a rogue needle full of local anaesthetic that had caused me the most grief… My urine is blood-free, and I am well on the mend. Until next time…………. Have you ever had one of those mornings where everything just goes wrong? You wake up to find that your phone that you put on charge the night before, hasn’t charged at all and is on 3% due to the plug being switched off at the wall. You try to create the perfect piece of toast starting with getting the right amount of butter on the knife. You then try and spread that butter perfectly across your piece of toast evenly, reaching all the edges without any excess butter, only to completely fuck it up and rip the crust clean off, because the toaster you have is not deep enough to take the entire piece of bread, therefore the crust doesn’t get toasted properly. Your toast is shit. Your morning is shit. You try to make light of the whole damn episode and post about it on social media, but you can’t because, guess what!? Your phone is shit. Therefore, your entire day is going to be shit. That’s how today started for me. Holy shit it was a fucking swamp donkey of a morning. A real stinker. Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror and thought ‘holy shit, son. You’re looking good’. I am now 11 kilos down and feeling great about myself. I have slipped a bit (and it is a slip) with getting boozey and slipping back into my old weekly drinking patterns. I am not drinking the quantity that I used to drink but it has started to become more and more frequent. That is going to change. I’m OWNING that. Weekly binges aren’t that good for me so I’m getting onto that right away. I am enjoying spending more quality time with my family and doing more and more things that don’t include screens. It’s easy some days to set the little shits up with an iPod or a phone and just let them smash out a good hour or two of YouTube so that you can get some shit done that you wanna get done…. Then with a knock at the door my morning changed. I AM GETTING A COLONOSCOPY! It is this coming Tuesday and I am so excited about it. Its an odd thing to be excited about, innit? Getting a long tube with a camera on the end of it put up your bum and then having your rectum and colon examined for about 45 minutes, but I can’t wait. My mum had cancer that started in the bowel and then spread EVERYWHERE and eventually, it took her away from me and my family. FUCK YOU, CANCER. So, I am over the moon to be getting checked out early to try and pre-empt this shit before it comes for me. As I have had a first-degree relative die from it under the age of 55 this is publicly funded for me, too! Four days before my appointment I have to begin a low fibre diet and then the day before my procedure I have to smash back a couple of high powered laxative pills and punch an extra 2 litres of laxatives over a 2-hour period in order to evacuate my bowel completely…. Nice. There is a warning note on my medicine that says, “Anal soreness may occur due to multiple bowel movements, if this happens, please apply Vaseline to the anus generously”, Great. So basically, I am going to be shitting for 12 hours leading up to my procedure. I am also not allowed to eat anything from 12pm the day before until after my procedure, but hey. I’ll be too busy shitting through the eye of the needle to even consider eating. There is also a very small risk that the colonoscopy will cause serious damage or bleeding to my bowel and I may need further treatment. That is a VERY small risk, however. I’ve been thinking back to the fact that my previous doctor told me that I wasn’t eligible for a publicly funded colonoscopy and that I’d have to pay round $5K if I wanted to get one. WHAT A LOAD OF SHIT! While I am happy about getting a colonoscopy, I am also incredibly nervous about it. Bowel Cancer runs in my family and I am scared to death that they’ll find something during the procedure. The positive side to this is that if they do find something, I’m young and the chances of beating it are in my favour. Having said that, I can’t help but cast my mind back to all the people I know that have had bowel cancer young and not beaten it. Scary shit. In my first blog post I wrote about getting a finger up my bum from my doctor on the first appointment I ever had with him and how the whole experience wasn’t actually that bad. For some reason men don’t go and get this shit done (colonoscopies) and it’s ridiculous. Surely if there is something you can do that means you’re going to be healthy, you’d do it right? Like putting on a seatbelt or staying away from the Absinth. My biggest fear is that after all this healthy eating and exercising that I have been doing and finally getting myself on the right track I’m going to get lumped with Bowel Cancer. Shit that would suck. I have finally said to my body “Hey, let’s be friends” and my body is responding by saying “Thank fuck, pal. I’ve been waiting our whole life for this”. So, I am really hoping that I have a healthy bowel and that no irregularities are found during this Tuesdays procedure. To finish I would just like to make a special mention to my amazing wife, Nikita. Nikita you are the tits, girl! A little while before my mum died in 2010, we were having a chat about life and shit and she reminded me of something that I had said to her as a 15-year-old teenager. My mum was dropping me off to Nikita’s house (she was having drinks) and she asked me on the way there; “So, where am I dropping you off, tonight”? “This girl, Nikita’s house, from school”. “Is she your girlfriend, Lee”? “No, she’s actually going out with my friend. But she will be” “Really”? “Yeah. I’m going to marry this girl, mum”. And I did! I married the shit outta that girl! How about that?! 16 years ago, when I was only 15, I told my mother that I was going to marry my friend’s girlfriend. FUCK that’s a cool story! Nikita, we have been through so much together over the past 16 years. We have laughed and cried together, lost and welcomed life, together and I don’t think that I’d be in a very good way, let alone be alive, if it weren’t for your presence in my life. You were there from the beginning. When everyone told you, I was no good and to broom me, you stood up for me. You were there. You have always been there, too. You have given me two beautiful children and you have been incredibly loving and supportive throughout this whole ‘health’ ordeal. You are a beautiful person and a total inspiration and I love you more than words could possibly express. Oh, and could you please buy some Vaseline on your way home from work today, because there is a good chance you’ll need to apply some generously to my anus in a few days. Have you ever had an ingrown toenail? Well I have. In fact, I do! I’ve been dealing with one for the past three weeks. It is mental sore! HOLY SHIT is it bad?! It’s such a wimpy injury to have, as well. People see me limping and say, “oh mate, what’s the matter, what happened”? To which I have to reply “oh, I have an ingrown toenail”. It makes me sound like such a bitch. Seriously, an ingrown toenail. WTF?! Why do the smallest, niggliest injuries hurt the most? Like tooth ache. Holy shit tooth ache sucks. I wouldn’t wish that shit upon my worst enemy. FUCK ALL THAT. Anyway, every ingrown toenail I get I always think that it’s gonna be the one that sees me at the doctors to get it cut out, but it never is. I have been stabbing away at this one, with a steak knife for the past 15 days or so and it is getting better. A lot of puss, a lot of red sore infected skin and a lot of Dettol antiseptic cream…. A friend of mine saw it last week and said “maybe you should go to the doctors, Lee. I think it’s gone beyond ‘steak knife’.” What does she know?! Nothing. That’s what. In fact what she doesn’t know could fill a warehouse.
Today I went to the gym for the first time in three weeks. What?! Don’t look at me like that. I had an ingrown toenail. It hurts to put it into a shoe. Well, it’s getting better now so I decided to go back to the gym. After my work out I jumped on the scales to see how I was tracking and guess what? THIS FAT MOTHERFUCKER HAS LOST 10 KG’s. I weighed in today at 153 Kilos which is 10 kilos less than I weighed 8 or 9 weeks ago! I am really proud of myself. Despite having a few boozey slip ups, well not slip ups per say. I knew what I was doing, and I don’t give a fuck. I did the funeral for a friend a couple weeks ago (in the middle of school holidays) and I got a little boozy at the wake. I also had the kids over the school holidays, so I couldn’t go to the gym. While I carried on with my healthy eating I did get a bit down on myself because I wasn’t going to the gym and thought I may have been losing progress and going backwards (due to not going to the gym). I was wrong though. I HAVE LOST 10 KILOS!! I feel incredibly positive and happy about my new weight. While I still have a lot to lose. A LOT. I am bloody chuffed to be weighing 10 kilos less. I didn’t think that I would lose this much so easily. Well it hasn’t been easy at all. It has taken a lot of will power and there have been many a meltdown…. Also, when I got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes my first thoughts were “Great!! Now I can’t do this, and this, and this, and this and basically, I’d have to give up everything that I loved doing. NOT THE CASE. What I have discovered over the past 9 weeks on my journey, is that it is all about self-management. I am in control of my body and the things that I put into it and if I am going to be putting anything that isn’t too good for me (booze, sugary treats, high carb foods) then I need to OWN it the way I own the fact that this whole situation is my fault. I need to work extra hard to burn off those things that I have indulged in. If I have a good week and eat well (and I do most of the time) then I can have some drinks or something sugary or carby on the weekend. Again, I am not drinking for the taste, I like getting boozy. Having said that, I am not drinking the amount that I was previously drinking, and I am drinking zero sugar drinks and low carb beers. That’s surely better than punching a box of reds and then a bottle of Jack in 6 mixes…. Surely. I need to be in control of this though and I feel that I am. Last week I went to the pub with the lads and had 2 pints of beer and then got a 6 pack of Woodstock Zero’s. They weren’t bad, and I did get a little boozy. I did want to punch a few more after the 6 pack was gone but my wife and I decided that I better not. HA! Yeah right. Who believes that?! I’m glad I listened to her, though (like I had a choice). I didn’t feel like shit in the morning and managed to get through the day without being a complete piece of shit. To finish, I just want to say once again how proud of myself I am. Which seems a little self-involved and arrogant, but I don’t care. I’m 10 kilos lighter and I’ll knock you out! |
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AuthorLee Weir - Radio Announcer, Marriage Celebrant and Guinness World Record Holder. Archives
January 2024
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