Kia Ora.
I’m 16 days into my new life without the turps. Life hasn’t really changed too much for me apart from the obvious - Not drinking beers on the weekend. I’m actually quite enjoying it, I wish I could say that I have had monumental breakthroughs in the way I look at life. Like how good food tastes on my taste buds, how soothing the sound of my children’s laughter is to my soul or that I've learned to appreciate how spectacularly cerulean blue the sky is. The truth is - The sky is still just fucking blue, food is still just food and usually always tastes good and as for the laughter of my 2 year old daughter - Well, that was an extremely bold statement - If I get to hear that sweet little innocent laugh every day for the rest of my life, I’ll die a happy man. What do I miss? I miss that first beer on a Friday afternoon. Most Friday’s I would look forward to that first sip more than anything else in life, come Friday arvo I felt like I had ‘earned’ that beer and more importantly - I DESERVED it. I had made it through another week and that was my special treat for being such an outstanding human being in both my work and personal life. I mean hell, I had not had a beer since the previous weekend and now it was time to spend some quality time with my pals in both the small brown bottles with the red labels and the big clear bottles with the black label and white letters. They never had plans with anyone else and would always make time for me. I am grateful for the warmth and constancy of their friendship over the past 20 odd years or so. So, it’s difficult for me to see alcohol as an enemy and as something that’s detrimental to me and my life and not as a friend and close companion. After all, it’s been my best friend and been at my side providing amplification, hype and comfort for some of the biggest moments of my life. The biggest of those moments was when I lost my mum to cancer on the 9th December 2010 after a 2 year battle. She was 51. FUCK YOU CANCER. For those of you who have lost a parent at a relatively young age (or any age) you know how heartbreakingly difficult it is to get yourself back on the road that you were on while they were still in your life. The truth of the matter is that you’re no longer on that same road and you’ll never be back on it, no matter how hard you try; that onramp and timeline is closed to you forever. You’re now stuck in the Alternate 1985 timeline that Biff Tannen created when he stole the DeLorean & went back to November 12th 1955 on the day of the ‘Enchantment Under the Sea’ dance and gave himself the ‘Grays Sports Almanac’ book. Everything is pretty shit. You’ve lost one half of the unconditional love that you’re guaranteed when you’re bought into this world. 50% of it - gone, never to return………..The worst thing about it is that it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t have a say in any of it yet it’s you that has to bear the brunt of it and carry that hefty bag of shit and emotions for the rest of your life. There’s not one thing that you could have done differently that would have altered the final outcome of this terrible situation that you’ve found yourself in. They’re gone and will always be gone. Deal with it. I dealt with it by spending a lot more time with my friends (the ones with the different coloured labels I mentioned earlier) and they did help me get by. I guess John Lennon was right, after all. “I get by with a little help from my friends”. I remember saying to my older brother on the day that mum died (while she was desperately trying to cling to the life that was being pulled out of her with every breath) “Don’t let me go too hard on the bottle after she’s gone, bro” To which he replied: “Bro you do whatever you have to do to get through”. Now, I always ALWAYS remembered everything that happened after a night out on the piss. There are maybe 2 times when someone has said to me “Oy. Remember when you did this XXXXXX last night”? That I didn’t remember. I have without a doubt, the best memory of anyone that I know. I have never told anyone this before (not even my wife) But I have no memory of the 2 months that followed my mum’s passing. I remember the 3am trip to Denny's to get a chicken club sandwich and curly fries with my wife and friends the morning after she died. I remember speaking at her funeral and I remember getting told to get out of the spa pool at 2am the night of my mum's wake by my dad and I remember laying in bed one night crying in Nikita’s arms and her cuddling me and rubbing my head and back until I fell asleep. To this day it is the closest I have ever felt to her and was the best cuddle I have ever had in my life. After that - I have nothing…..So from the 9th December 2010 ‘til maybe February 2011 - It’s blank. Nothing, nada, zip. I have my friends with the labels to thank for this. I was so deep in a hole that at any time I could have been given ‘the hose’ and told to ‘rub the lotion on my skin’. I never really understood the term ‘self medicating’ and thought it was a load of bullshit - some people might just drink because they enjoy it and not to repress unresolved trauma. If that’s you - Good on ya! I salute you. I wish I was someone that could ‘take or leave’ the booze and while I wasn’t someone that would drink every day, I was someone that would drink once a week without fail and the amount that I would drink had become more and more scary in recent years. I despise people that boast about how much they drink and who go as far as saying shit like “Last night I had 10 drinks here and then had G&T’s when we got to the bar and then a box of Bourbons at the kick ons” I don’t give a good god damn how much you can drink and i certainly don’t need to hear about it in detail. I am also acutely aware of the irony that it is exactly what I’m about to do now (kind of). The average night on the piss for me would (or could) consist of the following. Fucking heaps! Enough to get 3 or 4 people hammered and keep them hammered for the whole night. Anyway - I Digest…… I was self medicating and had been for quite some time. Alcohol soothed and relaxed me when I needed it to, pumped me up and had me raring to go when I needed it too and helped me cope when I needed it too. “Take 1 box of pre mixes and 1L of Jack Daniels (with Coke) and consume by the can or glass as often as needed. If your symptoms persist, remove the Coke and proceed to consume two fingers over ice or neat depending on your need”. Now there was a prescription I could get behind! Not anymore. Lee Weir M.D has been struck off, never to practice his own rogue methods or malpractice again. Slightly off topic but whoever coined the phrase ”Time Heals All Wounds” needs a swift roundhouse kick to the noggin. Time doesn’t heal shit! It’ll be 14 years this year that Antonia Maria Weir has not been in my life. 14 Birthdays that we’ve been robbed of. 14 Christmases where we’ve not been able to exchange presents. 14 Mother’s Days we've not been able to celebrate and thousands of hugs and kisses that I’ve not been able to give or receive. Don’t tell me that time can heal that, it can’t! I guess the saying “Time heals fuck all, and I guess that over time you just get better at dealing with it” doesn’t really have the same ring to it. Time has zero healing properties. If you take the time right now to think about something or a certain ‘life event’ that has happened and made you incredibly sad - you’ll get sad about it and it will hurt. Something that I have found that helps is what I like to call ‘Micro Grieving’. It takes about 10 - 15 minutes and it will 100% help you. Make sure that you’re by yourself. Put some headphones on and listen to a piece of music that resonates with how you’re feeling or just a sad song that will evoke those emotions from you and just have a good cry. I do this at least once a week (mostly on my way to or home from work in my car). For me it’s a Pearl Jam Song called ‘Come Back’ a Coldplay song called ‘The Scientist’ and as embarrassing as this is for a Rock Radio Announcer to admit - A certain Celine Dion song. I promise you that once you’ve done this, you’ll feel so fucking good. Feeling things is good. Being emotional is good. Crying is good. It lets the ‘Boo Hoo’s out. I wasn’t too sure if I should share this deeply personal and somewhat unorthodox & weird exercise with you or not but hey, it’s out there now and if it works for you - You’re welcome. Back on point - It’s been two (nearly three weeks) since I last had a buzz from alcohol and while the cravings are still present, I know that I have made the right choice. I have made a promise to myself that there’s just no room in my life for alcohol anymore. I think about all the time that I have wasted on being drunk or hungover and how much ‘family time’ has been sacrificed/sabotaged by me and my drinking habits and it makes me sad. Don’t get me wrong, at the time in my mind the decision to drink and not do whatever ‘bullshit family thing’ was being pitched to me was 100% the right call to make. It’s only now when I realise how much my presence was missed that I feel shitty about it. I’m not in any of the cool photos of Nikita and the kids, I wasn’t there for many of the experiences that my children had had and I can’t join in on the ‘Remember when we went to XXXX and saw that cool thing’ etc etc. That’s on me. I fucked up. Bad Lee! YOU NAUGHTY BOY!!! Every time I think about knocking the froth off of a couple dozen golden throat charmers - I now think about my children and how I’m not going to deprive them of doing something (anything) with their dad because he wants to thunder pump some tins. Whether it be jamming a few solo battles on Fortnite & chasing that elusive victory royale with the boy, having a game of Cribbage with the girl or doing the same god damn puzzle with the toddler 10 times; it’s what gets me through my ‘go on bro, have one’ cravings. FYI - That puzzle is currently the absolute bane of my existence. I have had so many people reach out to me to wish me luck, offer advice and say that me publicly addressing the fact that I’ve decided to quit drinking has sparked something within them and that they’re going to join me on this journey. Which is pretty bloody cool. The amount of love and support that I’ve received is incredibly humbling so, thank you to everyone that has reached out to me. I’ll continue to write shit like this as often as I feel led to. Also, I do not think that now that I’ve said ‘see ya’ to the suds that I’m any better than someone who drinks. I’m simply sharing my personal journey and thoughts on the matter in the hopes that someone at the very least, gets a good read out of it. If anything that I have written or said here resonates with you and you want to start making some changes to the habits you have then by all means - Give it a hoon. If not - Don’t. You do you. Until next time ~ Cheers & no beers, Lee.
0 Comments
Howzit?
I have chosen to give up drinking. And no. It’s not a poxy new years resolution or anything like that. But because I want to. I’ve had a good run on the ‘golden throat charmers’ and now the sun is finally setting on our near 30-year relationship. Don’t get me wrong - we’ve had a great relationship and alcohol will forever and always occupy an incredibly special piece of my heart but it’s just time to call it a day. To quote the great philosopher Craig David - “I’m walking away”. Every relationship has its ups and downs and my relationship with alcohol was just that. Picking one up and drinking it down. Then another, then another. It was great. I bloody loved it. I was good at it. I never used alcohol to fit in though. I have never thought of myself as being better when I’ve had a few. A little louder, yes. But do I need alcohol to ‘be accepted’?, no. No, I do not. I am just as much fun without the booze. I was also never an aggressive person or a dickhead while I was on it either. I’ve also never wet or shit the bed while drunk. That’s a win any way you look at it. I did however schedule every social thing that I’d do around the availability of alcohol. Everything I did socially was done around the fact that I would be able to punch a few whilst doing it. Sport games, picnics, beach days, dinner with friends, Barbecues and fuck, even kids’ birthday parties these days seem to have an alcohol station at them for the parents right next to the fairy bread and sausage rolls. I’ll miss that. Drinking has been a large part of who I am for as long as I can remember. I’d wear the “Lee can handle his piss” comments like a badge of honour and took immense pride that while most people were on their third or fourth beer – I was happily chopping my way through my eighth or ninth. Let’s just say that if we were to go halves on a 15 box – You were getting 7. That precious 8th beer was all mine and often chopped right at the opening of the box, I’d neck the first one in a couple of gulps, then open my second one while you were half way through your first so casually that you wouldn’t even realise that I’d had one more than you until we were reaching for the last two beers in the box and think “15 isn’t an even number, where did that 15th beer go”? Not my first rodeo, mate. I’m a pro. You’re smashing suds with the best of ‘em, pal. I wouldn’t drink every day. Hell, I’d say that drinking one night out of the week was totally fine, wouldn’t you? I would say that it was a minority of the time, not a majority of the time that I would punch beers. But I would punch beers. One night a week (usually on the weekend without fail) I would punch beers. Drinking every weekend (or every second weekend if I absolutely have to push it out that far) is something I have done since I was around 14/15 years old. It’s a routine, that’s all. A routine that needs to be changed. I have done it in other areas of my life, so I can do it this area too, surely? I have seen great results and changes in my health since making small sustainable changes in both what I eat and the quantity in which I eat. I have lost close to 13 kilos in the last 4/5 months and have noticed that clothes that didn’t fit me prior to making these changes are now fitting my rig just fine. So, this change in my alcohol consumption will surely prove to be beneficial to both my health and my wardrobe. I have a heart condition called Atrial Fibrillation. It is an irregular and elevated heartbeat. I never know when it’s going to come on and it’s a real pain in the ass. It’s quite palpitatey when it happens and is very uncomfortable. The episodes can last anywhere from 10 minutes – multiple hours. As a result of this I am on several different medications to help me keep my heart in check & rhythm.
I am also a type 2 diabetic and take Galvumet to help with that. Currently my diabetes is in check – my hba1c count is back down to nearer the pre diabetic range (a result of the changes that I have made in my diet that I mentioned earlier). Kicking goals, there. Happy with that. Back to the atrial fibrillation – This is an old peoples disease. My cardiologist told me that the main cause for someone my age getting this condition is alcohol consumption. She asked me 2 years ago during our first consult if I drank. The conversation went like this. “Lee this is an old people’s condition. Young people don’t usually suffer from this. The main cause for someone my age getting this condition is alcohol consumption. Do you drink”? “Yes I do”. “How much”? “No, no. That’s what I do. Some people play golf, others read books. I drink”. “do you drink every day”? “God no. I’m not an alcoholic. I do drink to excess every weekend though”. “How many Drinks do you have in one sitting”? “Depends. I could drink anywhere from XXXXXXX or XXXXXXX and XXXXXXXX in one session”. “O.K, well that’s not good. You should stop drinking altogether. That’s my professional recommendation.” “For how long”? “Until further notice”. “Fuck.” So, I stopped drinking for a few weeks and then slowly slid back into my old habits. Recently I have felt that my relationship with the booze is coming to an end. I’ve felt this way for a while now. So, it’s time to act. Time to say goodbye. It will be hard. It will suck at times but ultimately it will be for the best. No longer will I have to hear about people saying things about me to my family like “I’m worried about Lee. He drinks too much. I’m going to say something to him” While I am sure that the above comes from a good place being the last person to know that people are talking about you, sucks. No matter what the subject matter is or how good their intentions are. I’ve chosen to Break up with it. No trial separation, no marriage counselling. No late night ‘you up’? texts. I’m talking about a complete severance, and you know what, the divorce settlement will be win-win for me. I get the kids, the dog, the house, the DVD collection, the long happy life and alcohol gets nothing. Nothing except the odd desperate and awkward glances from me when I’m in a ‘drinking scenario’ at least for the first wee while. Don’t stop inviting me out. Don’t carefully open beers around me adjust your drinking habits to suit me. I’ll be fine. Onwards and upwards… L On the 9th December 2010 My mum died.
So, it’s now been ten years since my mum passed away. So, I’m using this as a time to reflect on everything that has happened since the 9th December 2010. After the recent passing of a friend I have been thinking about how profoundly vulnerable death can make us feel. IT’s so overwhelming at times, the tiniest thing can set me off and have me crying uncontrollably and while my love and my memories of my mum can’t blunt those memories or feelings, Maybe It is not about feeling better, maybe it’s about finding strength and support through love. Maybe it’s about experiencing fully, all our joy and sorrow, and by discovering that love can reveal itself even more deeply in times of loss. I remember that day 10 years ago like it was yesterday. I was at work and missed a phone call from an (09) 416 number. Mum and dad’s house. So, I called back and my mums friend Cheryl answered. I knew straight away that something was wrong because hearing her voice is never a good thing (You know I love you Cheryl). “Hang on Lee. I’ll put your brother on”. “Lee”? “Yeah”? “Come home bro. It’s happening”. “Fuck. O.K. I’ll bring beer” “Yep. Bring heaps”. I raced home and arrived to the news that my mum had had a fall in the night and was so upset and hysterical that she had to be sedated (the old man gave her some hearty prescription meds) and when I got there she was still out of it thanks to the sedation. I saw the woman who brought me into this world with her eyes wide open, mouth cracked all slack jawed breathing like an old car idling low and shaking as if the choke was still pulled out to full. It was going to happen, that much was for sure, but no one knew when exactly. After a few hours she passed peacefully surrounded by her family and loved ones. As far as deaths go, it was quite a nice one. My mum had cancer. Bowel cancer that spread everywhere and eventually and unfortunately like most cancer patients, it beat her. Fuck you, cancer. Her name was Antonia Maria Weir. Today on the 10th Anniversary of her death I have chosen 10 things that have happened in my life since her passing - Most of them are good but some of them are sad. Whatever they are, they all have one thing in common. My mum wasn’t around for any of them. She was however with me throughout all of them. 1). Oma Anita. She became an Oma (grandmother) to Lucy in 2012, Albie in 2015 and again in April 2021 when our latest weir wolf cub makes it earth side. All my children know exactly who their Oma is, and they embrace their Dutch heritage, fully. There are photos throughout our house of my mum and my daughter Lucy has a middle name named after her. Obviously I am incredibly biased but my mum would have been the best damn Oma in the world and if I think about it long enough it makes me quite upset that my kids never got to meet their Oma Anita. 2). The Rock FM. In 2014 I got a job at The Rock FM. This is somewhere I have always wanted to work. When I was at Radio School in 2007 the only thing I wanted to do was work at The Rock. My mum told me that if I worked hard, one day I would end up there. I did just that. Worked my way up from being a casual promotions assistant (driving The Rock Utes out and about to various spots around Auckland at 5am to give away free Mammoth brand chocolate milk and iced coffee) to now being a network (nationwide) radio announcer (A casual one at that). I do the regular weekend shows and get called upon a lot to fill in whenever someone is ill and they need someone to cover a show and I love it! They also gave me my first nickname ‘Westie Lee’ because I am from West Auckland. The name ‘Lee’ is already short, so I have never really had a nickname…. I have been at the rock for 6 years now. ROCK N ROLL! 3). Will You Marry Me? What started out as a joke between my wife and I, turned out to be the start of my career path. I joked that I would be a good celebrant while at a friend’s wedding after witnessing what can best be described as a very bland and ‘vanilla’ celebrant doing her thing. Fast forward a few months and I found myself filling in an application to become an independent marriage celebrant. After I was appointed by the department of internal affairs; births, deaths and marriages, shit went mental. I started booking out like there was no tomorrow. I should tell you though, that the first wedding I ever did ended in divorce, but she was always a cunt. Never mind. I am what you’d call a non-traditional celebrant, in fact one lady said to me at a wedding “You’re a very……..Unlikely looking celebrant, aren’t you”? She then followed that statement up with “So, do you get many weddings”? Wrong question, lassie! In 2019, I received an email from Internal Affairs asking me for my personal email and phone number as I was one of the top 3 celebrants that officiate the most weddings in the country! HOW BOWT DAT? I have
4). Degree. After leaving my job at World Vision after 6 years because I wasn’t happy in the current role that I was in (I felt I was destined for much more than a call centre (GREAT CALL LEE) – Ooh parentheses within parentheses). I went to study a Bachelor of Arts. It was while I was here (2014) that I got my job at The Rock and it was also during my studies that I became a Marriage Celebrant. The initial plan was to major in English and minor in Media Studies and then do a post grad teaching diploma and have a crack at high school teaching but as fate would have it I found my calling elsewhere. I still really did ‘find myself’ whilst studying. I reopened pathways and found that I had parts of my brain that had not been used in years. I had awoken parts of my brain that reinvigorated my flair for language, English, and writing. Fuck did I love writing essays! I was great at them. Nikita always got mad at me because I would procrastinate doing an assignment for weeks and then two days before it was due – I would get into it and produce a high graded assignment. You know that old saying ‘C’s get degrees”? Fuck that – B’s and A’s was where I lived motherfucker! Never settle for a C. You’re not a C. It turns out that when I applied for graduation – I did it wrong. I applied to graduate as a Bachelor of Arts Student majoring in English and Minoring in Media Studies when in actual fact, I had completed enough papers at the right levels in both subjects to have graduated with a double major in English and Media Studies……I give myself a C for ‘graduation applcation’………Shit! 5). Type 2. In April 2018 I was diagnosed with type two diabetes. Feel free to read the other blog posts in here if you want to know more about this. I’ve written enough about this….. 6). Guinness World Record. In 2014 I set the Guinness World Record for ‘The Most Tattoos of the Same Cartoon Character on the Body’ (Homer Simpson). Some prick in Russia has just beaten it, but I’ve already applied to take it back and am waiting for the results from the GWR team. My mum was ambivalent at best when it came to my tattoos, but she always laughed at my first Homer Simpson tattoo. Probably because I spent the money I was supposed to give to her for board on it. Actually, she didn’t laugh to begin with but as time went on, she ended up laughing at the ridiculousness of someone who’d get Homer Simpson tattooed on themselves. Well guess what, Anita – I’ve now got over 65 of the bastards and remember Adam’s friend from high school, Ben Jenkins? Yeah, well that sicko put them on me! 7). Storm the Gates. On the 17th March 2018 I got to MC a fucking music festival! I got to be up on the main stage for The Rock and introduce the following bands to the stage.
8). I Also Do Funerals. One of my regular gags at the end of a wedding reception that I have MC’d is as follows “For any of you young couples that are thinking of getting married, I’ve left some of my business cards at the bar. Oh, and for you oldies, don’t worry; I also do funerals”. It ALWAYS goes down a storm, lots of laughs. Then sadly, a friend of mine (more of a friend of friends, but I knew and respected the guy) sadly chose to leave us behind. It was awful, just awful. When his family were meeting with the funeral director, he said that he would do the service unless there was someone that they wanted to do it, instead. Apparently, they all looked at each other at the same time and just said “Lee”? I got a phone call from his brother-in-law and best friend and he said “Hey bro, I need a favour”. Without even hearing him out I said I’d do it. I knew exactly what he was wanting me to do. So, I went round to meet with the family and started preparing to do a funeral. I don’t like doing funerals but if there is a connection for me (like there was, here) then I’ll do them. I have done 7 funerals and all of them have left me absolutely rinsed afterwards. I did the funeral for one of my friend’s dad’s at the Swanson RSA and ended up getting a wedding off the back of it (it was weird). A few days after the funeral, one of his mates who had attended, called me. He got my number off a mutual family friend who told him I was a celebrant. He went on to tell me that he was in the same boat as his friend who’s funeral I had just done and that he too was terminal and didn’t have long to go and wanted to marry his partner of like 20/30 years. So, I went round and met with him and his lovely partner and started to plan their wedding. We got to know each other quite well and he ended up giving me an incredibly special set of vinyl records and a chopping board that he had hand made. It is magnificent, it truly is. During the wedding planning process, he asked me if I did funerals too. I told him that I only do funerals where there’s a connection for me like his friend’s funeral that I had done weeks earlier. He understood. After I had done their wedding I got an email from him saying “Hi Mate a special thank you for being there for ___ and I on our day. You’re a legend! Our guests have been full of compliments about the lovely, charismatic Lee and how on earth did we find you? Again, thank you! Don’t forget – Life without music would Bᵇ kind thanks and take care _____ PS I know you don’t like doing funerals however I would be honoured if you would do mine when the time comes? I said I would obviously, and was hoping to shake his hand one last time and say goodbye before he passed but I didn’t get my chance. I did his wedding on the 6th April, he passed away on the 13th April and I did his funeral on the 18th April. It was so surreal to have been there on both his wedding day and then at his funeral a little over a week later. So, now I do funerals. 9). Here’s to 10 more. On the 14th March 2019 Nikita and I celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary. Because we had quite a small wedding back in 2009 (we didn’t dance or have dinner, it was more of a cocktails and afternoon canapes kinda deal). So, we hired a camp site, some marquees, a band and some caterers and had a ‘wedding reception’ styled evening with our family and friends. It was truly a beautiful night. We ate, drank and danced the night away with the people closest to us and even though there was a terrible terrorist attack in Christchurch on the day of our shindig (15th March) the evening was full of love, togetherness and friendship. I am so thankful that my mum was able to be there on my wedding day back in 2009. She was very sick but she fronted up and made the day that extra bit special for Nikita and I. She was so helpful and even yelled at all the useless pricks that were supposed to be helping to clean up once the evening was over. I wasn’t there to see it but I’m told it was quite the rark up! If you’ve ever been told off by the old gal, you’ll know that she doesn’t piss around. 10). Every single day. Every single day I think about mu mum at least once. I’ll see or hear something that reminds me of her. My kids will do something that I used to do that would piss my mum off and I chuckle. Every day I think about how unfair it is that she died and there are such terrible terrible people in the world who are totally fine. I think about how it would be so easy to blame god for this and how if he wanted to he could have saved her from all of this shit. But, what good is that going to do? I know that it wasn’t god that took my beautiful mum. It’s just easy to blame the big guy, I suppose. I have had a lot of people in my life die over the past 10 years and there’s one thing that I have learnt more than anything and that is this – ‘LOVE WINS’. Love is what gets you through the hard times. Love for each other, love for the person that has passed away and love for everyone who is coping with the loss of someone in their lives. The only way that you’ll ever get through something like losing a loved one is with the company and love of others. Love will mend your broken hearts and help get you back on the road that you were on when that person was still in your life. Also, Time doesn’t heal anything. You just get better at dealing with it, and $100 to the person who can tell me how you get better at dealing with it? That’s right, with love. John Lennon really was onto something, wasn’t he? ~ All you need is love. I love you mum. Can I ask you one last favour? Visit my dreams a little more? Please. I wrote a blog piece about Grace Millane the other week. I decided not to publish it. It wasn’t controversial or anything, but there has just been far too much said on that matter from far too many people.
Instead, I am writing about my Diabetes, again. As you ALL know,, 182 days ago, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in May earlier in the year. I weighed in at 164 kilos and my hbA1c levels were sitting at 82. (which is NOT GOOD). Anything over 50 means that you’re a full-blown type 2 diabetic. Fast forward three months to my next doctors’ appointment in August. I had drastically turned my lifestyle around. I was eating better (less carbs and sugar), eating smaller quantities and exercising daily. Three small changes that saw me drop close to 16 kilos and nearly halve my hbA1c count. In three months. As of the 27th August my new hbA1c count was sitting at 43, which is a BIG deal. A HUGE DEAL. I was so happy with myself. Looking back from at the morbidly obese monster that I was at the beginning of the year to the slightly less morbidly obese man that I had turned into filled me with immense pride. Technically I am still morbidly obese, which again, is such a terrible term……… I guess it’s on me to change the label that is given to me, huh?! Someone messaged me a few months ago and told me that my writing made them sad. Not sad because of the subject matter or because of what I was going through but because of all the self-deprecating humour that I used. I replied by saying that it’s not humour. For example, there is nothing funny about being a morbidly obese sack of fucking shit (which is what I was). There is nothing funny about getting yourself to a point in life where you decline spending time with your family and doing family activities because you think that there is ‘too much walking’ involved. That shit’s not funny. That shit’s disgusting. It’s shameful. It’s pathetic and to be honest – I really wish someone had have called me on it as harshly as I wrote about it a LONG time ago. No one did, though. I’m not saying that it was up to someone else to get me to sort my shit out, because it wasn’t. It’s nobody else’s job but mine to get right with myself. I’m on it, now. I’m out there doing it. So, if you read my stuff and think “oh lee you shouldn’t be saying that kinda stuff about yourself, you’re a great person” - While you’re right, I am a great person, but at the time I wrote that stuff I was also an unhealthy person. A selfish person. A lazy person. I’m not now, though! I suppose that I was being hard on myself so that no one else could or would. I have just finished up another three-month prescription of Metformin (the diabetes medicine that helps to regulate my blood sugar levels) and I had to go for another blood test on Tuesday to check what my hbA1c count was. Remember that I was at 82 in May and anything over 50 is Type 2 diabetes and that in August I was at 43, which made me a pre-diabetic because anywhere between 41-50 is considered pre-diabetic or IGT (impaired Glucose Tolerance). Since August I have been running a little test if you will. I have been drinking more frequently as I wanted to see just how much that was a contributing factor to my diabetes. I have still been eating good; bar the odd subway meatball sub and 2 double choc chip cookies, combo once a week. The eating isn’t really an issue for me anymore. I have that shit on LOCK. I no longer get down on myself after eating takeaways etc. I just know that if I am going to eat some KFC or Subway or Maccas, that I need to work twice as hard to work that shit off. I need to make sure that my eating and exercise are on point and all of that is in my control. If I have a good week on ‘the eats’ as I call it, then I know that I can get away with doing a little less exercise and if I have a shit week on ‘the eats’ that I need to go ‘Big Raho mental’ on the exercise. I would just like to say that I am thoroughly enjoying being a more active person. I am really enjoying spending time with the family doing physical things and I can see the joy that it gives them having me there with them. Anyway, I went for a blood test on Tuesday and my hbA1c count is now at 41. So, it has dropped 2 more points which shows excellent control. It shows that I have not only maintained my blood glucose levels over the past 3 months but that I have done enough with my new lifestyle change to knock it down a few more pegs. I was expecting it to be up higher, to be honest. I thought that because I had been drinking a bit more since August that it would have crept up a tad (or a lot) but it hadn’t. Which goes to show me that the results of the little test that I was conducting have come back in my favour. The booze isn’t as big of a contributing factor as I thought. It’s the lifestyle. It’s the over eating and no exercising that’s gonna get me back up there and as I said earlier – I have the eating ON LOCK! The exercise side of things I feel pretty good about too, the way I look at it ANY exercise is better than NO exercise. As we head into the silly season, I am feeling optimistic. I am feeling accomplished and I am feeling happy. Happy more than anything else. I have taken all that 2018 has had to throw at me, wrapped it up in a nice package, signed it “FUCK YOU” and sent it off to the year 2019 with a wee note ~ "Do your worst" I'm really looking forward to spending time with friends and family and knocking the froth off a few golden throat charmers in the coming weeks. Oh, that reminds me. Dear liver: Gear up little buddy, the next few weeks are going to be rough on you. Stay strong my little champion. Sincerely, Lee Last weekend I had an anxiety attack. Holy fucking shit. It was the worst thing that I have experienced, ever. Like EVER. Everything sucked. Everything was bad. Everything felt like shit. All the blood drained from my body and submerged my feet in a pool on the floor. My heart stopped beating and I fell to the ground, lifeless. My stomach burst open spilling bile and acid all over my new and now blood-soaked Air Force Ones. And my head was overcome with so much pressure that it literally fell off. Well, not literally, but all that other shit happened, honest. It was a visceral, all encompassing attack on every single one of my senses. I couldn’t eat, I was struggling to breath, I couldn’t sleep. All I could do was try and ride it out. It really was one of the worst days of my life. I’m a pretty resilient & strong person who doesn’t get rattled easily but last week I felt like a 4-year-old child that got separated from his mum for the first time in his life at Pak n Save. I was desperately running around the aisles trying to find her and I couldn’t. She was nowhere to be seen and I WASN’T coping. All I wanted was for it to be over. For her to pop her head around from the confectionery aisle with a Whittaker’s peanut slab and reassure me that it was O.K. That I was going to be fine and that she loved me. That didn’t happen. I was all alone in a supermarket with no mum and no sense of hope. True and utter abandonment.
FUCK ALL THAT In steps the wife. Thank god she was there. She found that 4-year-old boy with tear tracks down his face and urine-soaked trousers and sat him down and consoled him as any loving mother would a small, lost child. She goes on to explain to that small defenseless child that she feels like this at least two or three times a week. FUCK ALL THAT I apologised to her. Actually, I’d like to apologise to ANYONE that suffers from anxiety – I am so sorry. Sorry for having feelings of doubt about your illness. Sorry for thinking that it was ‘not as serious’ as people make it out to be and I’m sorry for admitting those feelings to you now. Also – You’re my HEROES! How you manage to keep on getting out of bed every day and carrying on baffles me. You’re the real MVP’s because nothing can be worse than fighting with your own mind (and often losing) every single day. You’re one bad ass motherfucker! I had an idea for a T-shirt the other day, too. A slogan, if you will “Anxiety’s a bitch – Slap it” And no, not in a ‘domestic violence is O.K’ way. Or a ‘sexist’ way or in chauvinistic-anti ‘ma vagina’ feminist way. As in, I would love to have bitch-slapped the shit out of my anxiety attack that day. Bitch – slapped that prick so hard that it would never come back! That attack was a turning point in my life. At the ripe old age of 32, the confident, loud, boisterous, fun loving, enthusiastic, handsome Lee that you all know was reduced to a crumpled heap on the floor and couldn’t seem to find his feet. An absolute wreck. West Auckland lost another young male to suicide the other week. While I didn’t know him well (or at all, really) I had met him a few times in our younger years at parties and around in West Auckland circles and he was a top bloke. A real GC. I know his group of friends and his lovely lady extremely well and to see their devastation and grief pouring out on social media the past week and a bit, has been agonising. I was working the night show on The Rock last week and I reached out to see if there was something I could do, even if it was to just get a request on for his partner and send a little shout out/tribute to him. She messaged me back and said that she’d love that and when I asked her what she wanted me to say, her reply blew me away. She wanted me to say to everyone listening that it’s O.K to not be O.K and to talk to someone if you’re having a shit time. No heartfelt ‘I love you’ or ‘I miss you’, In her saddest moment on this earth she wanted to put the message out there that males need to TALK about this kind of shit. She was concerned for other people’s well-being and mental health. Top gal. GB! Now I love attention just as much as the next bloke. ADHD massive! And the only thing that appeals to me (well not appeals, but you know. Read on) The only thing that I would like about committing suicide is the attention that I’d get after I had done it. BUT – Hear me out…. I wouldn’t be around to get any of that attention, so I would never do it. Here is where I’d like to throw the whole NZ suicide rates statistics at you, but we already know them. What I will do is once again reiterate the importance of TALKING about these issues. Don’t just sweep it under the couch until someone else you know takes their own life – Bring it up with people. Keep the conversation around suicide going. Reach out to your friends to check on ‘em. Because I am sick and tired of telling people how good it is to see them at funerals. IT’S NOT GOOD TO SEE YOU. I don’t want to see any of my friends at funerals. I’d rather see them at the pub or in my back yard enjoying some food and fellowship. A few months ago, I was asked by a friend’s family (and a GREAT family) if I would be the funeral celebrant for a friend that left us behind and it was one of the hardest things that I have ever done. To be in that room full of people I knew and loved and to see all their faces welling up with tears was like my own personal hell. I was also incredibly humbled and honoured to have even been asked to take on such an important role. I am a professional talker. That’s what I do, that’s my vocation. I talk on the radio, I talk in front of large crowds of people week in week out and yet I was tits scared to be doing this. Mainly because I knew that I was going to see my friends sad and crying and a little lost and helpless, like a 4-year-old child that got separated from his mum for the first time in his life at Pak n Save. I don’t want to see my friends cry. I don’t want to be saying things that make people cry. I love my friends and family and I don’t say that lightly. If you’re a friend of mine you’re a good friend of mine and there is nothing I won’t do for you (except lend you money) Friends shouldn’t lend friends money. Suicide rips a hole in the lives of the ones that are left behind that will never fully heal no matter what you try and fill it with. A hole that will always be there, niggling at you and prodding you with a sharp stick. So once again – YOU ARE NOT A BURDEN AND IT’S NEVER A CHORE! Talk again, soon. First. I'VE GOT ANOTHER CONFESSION TO MAKE!!! (If you didn't read that in the tune of the Foo Fighters song 'Best of You', then we can't be friends anymore)
I haven’t been to the gym in over 2 weeks because the sauna and spa facilities aren’t working. Something wrong with the gas lines that heat that area of the building. Seems silly to not use the gym that is in perfect working order just because I can’t visit the sauna and spa. Maybe I’ve just got lazy. Yep, that’s it. I’ve got lazy. Lazier with my eating habits, lazy with my drinking habits, lazy with my exercising. STEP UP LEE! DO BETTER! I’m getting back into my structured eating plan. I am going on an alcohol detox starting now and I am getting back to the gym regardless of whether or not I can sit in a hot room with a bunch of other sweaty dudes that don’t speak English. I’m all over this shit! Last Tuesday, I got an email from one of the producers of ‘The Project’, asking me if I wanted to come on the show and talk about my health journey and where I was at with it all. I was a little hesitant to do this at first because it’s a nationwide tele show and I didn’t want to make a dick of myself, potentially……Then I thought about how cool it would be to get on there and tell my story to someone who was maybe going through the same thing and give a little advice on how I have managed to do so well. I am so glad that I did it, too. It was a LOT of fun and the crew there (at the project) were so accommodating and lovely. I was sitting backstage in the green room with Ben and Tom from The Block and a bunch of dudes with AMAZING BEARDS who were there to talk about the beard and moustache festival competition or something. Whatever they were there for, they made me feel so inadequate as someone who was quite proud of his beard. It was so blatantly obvious to everyone in the green room just why they were going on the show. Ben and Tom were obviously there to talk about The Block NZ, the television show that they’re on. The beardy twats were obviously there for their facial hair achievements, but why was a fat, bald bogan in a ROCK 1500 t-shirt there? Ben decided to find out…… So, why are you here, man. What are you doing on the show? I had no idea how to explain why I was there in a few sentences without getting into EVERYTHING, so I said Well, I used to be really fat with diabetes and now I’m just fat without it. Oh…………… Poor dude looked so confused, ay. So, I went a little more in-depth but only a little. Sorry bro. (laughing)… I was diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic in May this year due to being so fat. And now I have reversed my diabetes diagnosis in three months and lost a bunch of weight and I’m here to talk about that……. All good man, congratulations. Cheers mang. Prior to sitting at the desk, I had a chat with Arun, one of the producers about what questions they were going to ask me etc. It was important that I didn’t say that I ‘had beaten diabetes’ or that ‘I had cured diabetes’ because technically, you can’t cure it. It's an incurable disease. What you can do however, is reverse the diagnoses and no longer be a type 2 diabetic. I know what you’re thinking – isn’t that the same thing, Lee? Honestly, I’m not too sure. From the research I have done, you’re only a type 2 diabetic if your hbA1c count is over 50. If it is under 50 and between 41-50 you’re a ‘pre-diabetic’ and if you’re under 40 – you’re not pre-diabetic. So, if you’re asking me – and you are, right?
I was a type 2 diabetic. Now I’m not. I’m a person who falls into the category of being ‘pre-diabetic’. So again, I am not a type 2 diabetic, but my hbA1c count could rise again to over 50 (making me one again) if I don’t keep going with my lifestyle change. Ya follow? All of that would have been far too much to squeeze into a 4-minute interview on live tele so I avoided the whole thing and talked about how my hbA1c count was at 82 in May and then 90 days later, it is now at 43. I talked about my motivation and my family and my doctor’s reaction to my amazing 90-day turnaround. I talked about the fact that I was probably undiagnosed for a year or so and some of the symptoms that I had. It felt good to do that show. They have a lot of viewers and hopefully my story helped someone and if it didn’t, ah well. It helped me. It turns out that a very dear friend of mine (Catherine) is good friends with Jesse Mulligan from The Project and was at his house for dinner the weekend before my appearance. She told him that he had to get me on the show and told him my story and about how I was writing about it and how incredibly open and honest I have been with it all in my blog pieces. I guess Jesse read a few of my pieces and thought – Yeah, we’ll get this bogan on for sure. The one thing that I’m gutted that I didn’t talk about was how much weight I have lost. But that’s they way it goes, you prep your whole day for what you’re going to say and then when the big dance finally arrives, and the spotlight is on you, you forget all the moves. I am glad that I said that I knew that it was my fault that I got the diabetes diagnoses and that I didn’t pick up some disease overseas or anything, it was all a result of me allowing myself to get to the size that I am and that I own that completely. If you have a skim through my previous blog posts, that is probably the most common recurring theme. ‘That it is my fault and I own that and my situation completely’. ‘That it’s on me to change it and that the only person responsible for this whole mess is me’. All in all, it was a pretty good interview and I had a lot of incredibly positive feedback on how eloquently I spoke and how I represented myself. I did have to google what ‘eloquent’ meant, though…………. I knew it was a positive word and that it was associated with speaking and presentation end shit, but I certainly had never used it in a sentence. It means “Fluent or persuasive in speaking or writing”. I’ll take that. A friend of mine told me on Friday night at The Rock 1500 party that I made the show better. That I made tv interesting and fun. Educational and entertaining. Again, I’ll take that. It was a lot of fun to do and then to re watch when I got home. It was also nice to get make up put on my big bald head. Still – they didn’t have to put me on straight after those dudes with the glorious beards, though. I’m still trying to cheer my beard up. I feel it will take some time. Over the past week I have been reflecting on my journey over the last 90 days and just how far I have come. I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty bloody chuffed with myself.
On the 23rd May I was 164 kilos and had just been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes as a result of my weight and my diet. It was the worst thing to have happened to me since my mum lost her battle with cancer and slipped away from me and my family on the 9th December 2010. Man, that sucked. It sucked so bad. It was a Thursday evening that she passed. The Wednesday night before, my wife and I were at our church (we were youth group leaders at the time) and the night was drawing to a close and I said to my sister Gary (remember the nickname evolution from Carol-Anne – Gary that I outlined in a previous blog) “Hey Gaz, we’re off mate, come on let’s go”. We used to drop Gary off to mum and dads on our way home (even though it wasn’t on our way home at all) but this meant that we could sneak in a mid-week cup of tea with my mum in her sick room (a little room off of my parents kitchen that had a nice hospice bed in it because she could no longer make it up the stairs and I guess it was cheaper than putting in a chair lift) and it was close to the downstairs toilet. Gary replied by saying “Nah mate, I’m staying at Lily’s house tonight” This didn’t feel right to me. I don’t know what it was but something about the fact that we weren’t dropping Gary home and therefore not going to get to see mum made me feel a little queasy. In fact, I have that feeling right now just writing about it. I told her to “stop mucking around and to come with us” She reckoned that “mum and dad know that I’m staying at Lily’s and it’s all-good” So, Nikita and I headed home. The next morning as soon as I got to work, I noticed that I had 6 missed calls from mum and dad’s landline number. This was not uncommon as dad was often calling me multiple times to ask me if I had ‘borrowed’ the diced lamb from his freezer. I very seldom receive a call from dad that is not of an accusatory nature. There is a little bit of small talk at the beginning, the old “How are you, how’s Nikita” Then comes the question “Hey, you didn’t happen to borrow a can of chilli beans/diced lamb/500g pack of bacon while you were here last week, did you”? NO DAD. I DIDN’T. I logged into my computer, set up for the day and then I returned the call to see what I had supposedly taken this time and my mums friend Cheryl answered. Hello, weir household. Cheryl? Yes, that you sweetie? Yeah, I have a bunch of missed calls from dad. What’s up? Hang on, I’ll get your brother. No no. What’s going on. Lee – I’ll put you on to Adam …………………………………………………………………………………….. Lee? Yeah man, what’s going on? Come home, bro. Oh god, no……. Really? Yeah little brother. It’s happening now. Come home. On my way. I called Nikita on the way home and she was already on her way to my mum’s house. My Oma as on her way from Cambridge and my uncle and aunty were shooting down from Kamo. I got a txt on my way home that simply read “Beer” So, I stopped by King Dicks Westgate and grabbed a slab of Tui and a slab of Lion Red. And raced back to mums. When I got there, I was told that last night my mum needed to go to the loo, so she went to get out of bed and had had a fall. She pressed her ‘help’ alarm and my brother Adam had come out of the sleepout (where he was staying during the last few months of mum’s life to help out) and found her on the floor in a delirious/hysterical state. Dad came downstairs, and they both successfully managed to get mum back into her bed, but she was still incredibly unsettled and in a total state. Dad called the doctor and he told him to give her a sedative to help her calm down and get back to sleep. So, he did and sadly, she never woke up from that sleep. I remember every minute of that day like it was yesterday. Thursday 9th December 2010. The day that one of the two people that loved me unconditionally and would have given their lives for me without question if it meant that I would not ever feel pain, couldn’t hold on any longer and slipped away from me. I love you mum. I really wish you were still here. Wow what a tangent. Anyway, Over the past three months I have worked extremely hard to get my health in order. I ate less. I ate healthier and I exercised daily. Something that I know I probably should have been doing from the get-go, but still; I am glad to be doing the right stuff now. I am still not happy with how much I weigh, and I do have a goal weight in mind and until I reach that I will keep on doing what I am doing and keep on going hard and pushing myself to do better. I would like to thank everyone that has supported me in this journey (and it is far from over) but I am grateful for all your support so far. Especially my wife, Nikita, my family, my work crew at The Rock & Morepork and my children. That’s who I’m doing it all for – My children. They need their dad around for a long time. I want to teach my son how to drive. I want to dance with my daughter on her wedding day and I want to be around to experience the joy of grandchildren. I am not too sure when my next blog entry will be so thank you for reading them and thank you all for your kind words. 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. 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! When Tom Petty died I listened to nothing but him on my phone for the following two / three weeks. Every time I was in the car or doing something that needed a soundtrack, Mr Thomas Earl Petty was there with me, keeping me company & ‘Keepin me Alive’. I must have played the song ‘Wildflowers’ hundreds of times. It is such a beautiful song. On the 17th July I was the funeral celebrant for a friend who sadly, left us behind. He was an amazing human being and will be forever missed but never forgotten. BANKSY once said “You die twice. Once when you actually die and then again when someone says your name for the last time.” It was ‘Without a Shadow of a Doubt’ one of the HARDEST things I have ever done. EVER. I think that I handled myself alright, though. I swear to god half of West Auckland was there. Maybe that’s why I was O.K. Though I did ‘Breakdown’ a few times, I think it was for the betterment of the whole service. It was such a sad day filled with the right amount of inappropriate jokes (hey, they had me do the thing, there were bound to be a few thrown in there)! A voice inside my head kept saying – Don’t fuck this up, Lee. They’re ‘Counting on You’ to do a good job. I didn’t fuck it up. After the ceremony I made my way outside to say my final goodbye to my friend and placed a flower on his casket. After all that I needed a hug. I saw my beautiful, loving, supportive wife coming my way and thought “thank Christ” ‘Here Comes My Girl’. Man you get good hugs at funerals. They are the kinds of hugs that you should be getting all the time from people in your life that care about you; genuine, firm and real. If you’re ever having a shit day, go and find a funeral home and just join in for the hugs. My friend was a legend in the racing community and had won so many races at Western Springs that no one could actually tell me just how many he had actually won. They’d lost count! He’s up there now, he’s been set loose ‘Into the Great Wide Open’ to tear shit up on the ‘Kings Highway’. A very dear friend of mine works with crystals, so I asked her if there was a crystal that I could wear or keep in my pocket that would help me deal with and get through the service without losing my shit constantly. She went out and sourced me a crystal called LAPIS LAZULI. It helps with
It was exactly what I needed and helped immensely with my delivery and tone on the day. To any sceptics out there – Don’t worry. I was one too. ‘You Don’t Know How it Feels’ until you give it a jam. I believe that it helped me on the day and that’s all that matters. People put their faith and trust into all sorts of things these days so why not a gem/crystal/stone. Thanks Renee. I really appreciate it! After the funeral I joined the half of West Auckland that made it to the service at The Hangar for a few jars and a few laughs. This is the same bar where I run my dad groups on Sundays and was in walking distance from the funeral home. So, I called them beforehand to let them know that around 4/4:30pm they were going to have an influx of bogans who have found themselves all dying of thirst because the number of tears they had shed had left them dehydrated and ready to smack some motherfucking piss! The manager was incredibly grateful and even called in a few extra staff members to man the bar. While we were out there smashing jugs of Export 33 (low carb) beer, I noticed a handful of yellow balloons floating in the sky overhead. These were the balloons that my friend’s family had released at the private cremation ceremony back at the funeral home. I raised my voice and said “hey, look. There go ol’ mate’s balloons” I raised my glass and said, “Rest easy, brother”. Then I witnessed one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen in my 31 years on this earth. The entire outside area of the bar fell deadly silent and every single pair of eyes were fixated on 10 -15 yellow balloons drifting aimlessly towards the heavens. This was made even more poignant as people raised their glasses and held them there until the balloons faded into the distance. What an incredibly special moment. A pub roaringly busy with around 300 tattooed up motherfuckers rocking mullets and smoking roll-your-own Port Royal durries, was brought to a standstill. Not even a whisper. Complete silence. People came out from inside to see what the ‘silence was about’ and as they realised the enormity of what was going on, and that it wasn’t just a bunch of grunty battlers looking up at ‘Something in the Air’, their glasses made their way skyward too, and an entire bar stood in silence and watched a handful of yellow balloons float across the sky. Balloons! This is not something you see every day in a West Auckland pub. Ask anyone that was there that afternoon and they will tell you that the most humbling presence and feeling of love washed over every single person in that place at that moment and for a few silent minutes it was like he was back with us. As they soared higher and higher into the sky I felt a tear form in the corner of my eye, and as it rolled slowly down my cheek it was met by the corner of my lips and a smile. A smile that I wasn’t even aware was there. As I wiped the tear from my smiling face, this thought entered my mind – I bet he was sitting up there waiting for those balloons to reach him and I’d like to think that at least one of those balloons (maybe one of the ones that his beautiful children had let go) made it all the way up to his glorious ‘Room at the Top”. Tuesday night at The Hangar is quiz night and I couldn’t help but feel that there were going to be a bunch of people that were none too impressed that their pleasant evening was going to be soured by the presence of us riff raff. I decided I would enter a team into the quiz and have a stab. We came second to last (mainly because I was a one-man team and I gave up at round 5 to go back outside and hang out with my friends). A good friend of mine came up to me and told me that I needed to shut up and calm down because I was being too loud, and they were going to kick us all out. I don’t know about that………I’m always loud. Granted I did have a few jugs in me by this point. He reckons I was real close to getting the ol’ ‘Refugee’ treatment. The whole HEY YOU – GET OUT and ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ from the bar staff. Ah well. I remember thinking that if they were going to come and try and boot me out. ME. THE KING OF RANUI then they were crazy. They can try but I’ll stand my ground and “I Won’t Back Down’. After all, it was me that called them and gave them the heads up about all of us turning up and I’m pretty sure we would have whacked close to $8K over their bar that night. I guess that’s just me, though. I’m always ‘The Wild One, Forever’. 10pm crept up on me like a cold sore and I was faced with the decision of making one of two choices.
Find my mum up there, Zahn. She’ll look after you. She’ll be the beautiful Dutch lass Rolling up a Park Drive and holding a glass of Stones Ginger Wine for you. Xoxoxo I thought I’d take a break from talking about me in this blog and talk about you. How are you? And no. it’s not an empty nicety or something you say to someone in the hopes that they’ll say “yeah I’m all good” I am genuinely interested…
TELL ME HOW YOU’RE FUCKING DOING. TELL ME HOW YOU’RE FUCKING FEELING. I WANT TO KNOW. HONESTLY!! If you’re not O.k. That’s O.K. It’s 100% fine to NOT be O.K. Shit, I’ll start. I’m not O.K. I feel like a complete failure at the moment. A failure because I can’t find a full-time job in the industry I’m in. I applied for a job with another station and I didn’t even get an interview. Rejected before phase 1. I was told that ‘my skills and experience didn’t meet their specific criteria’. It was a job as a radio announcer. That is what I have been for the past 4 years. (go figure). I feel like a failure because my children don’t want me to put them to bed at night they only want their mum, a failure because I let myself get to the size and weight that I am, and I am now in a position where I am not very well because of it. So actually, I’m not O.K at the moment. I’m pretty fucking far from O.K. I lost a friend today. We weren’t the type of friends that hold hands in the park and spend every waking moment with each other. Hell, the last time I saw him was about 9 months ago or so, we were actually more friends of friends who happen to bump into each other every now and then, but I considered him a friend. Fuck he had a great sense of humour! We were at a wedding together for some good mutual friends a few years ago and shit his jokes were inappropriately marvelous! He had an incredibly beautiful wee family and now he’s gone. My thoughts and prayers are with his family at this time, too. I got a text from a friend asking me if I ‘had heard’. I knew what had happened straight away. I knew he hadn’t won Lotto. I knew he didn’t become an overnight celebrity or that he had just inherited 70 million. I KNEW from that simple question “Hey did you hear about so & so” that I was not ever going to see him again. Over the years I have had too many of those messages sent to me by friends. I got the message at the pools as I was in the family changing rooms getting the kids changed from after our swim. Right then and there I lost my shit and started bawling my eyes out and hugging my children. I DON’T WANT TO GET THOSE MESSAGES ANYMORE. THIS HAS TO STOP. Please. If you are feeling like there is no way out and you can’t seem to crawl out of the pit you’re in REACH OUT FOR HELP! Someone will throw you a ladder so that you can climb out. Reach out to someone. Anyone. Have a scroll through the contacts list on your phone. Any one of those names will be at your door within minutes if you genuinely need their support and time. There are also anonymous services like lifeline that you can call if you don’t want to ‘burden’ your friends with your heavy shit but let me tell you right now. You are not a burden to your friends. This is what friendship is. This is why we’re here on this earth – To interact, connect and form bonds with other human beings. Otherwise – what’s the point? The people you connect with and form bonds with are called ‘friends’ and they will love you and be there for you whenever you need them and if they won’t, then they’re C*@ts (and sadly, there are a few of these types around, too). Filter those pricks out of your life and surround yourself with positivity, love, kindness and hope. Suicide is something that STILL gets swept under the rug and that people don’t want to talk about. I for one am sick and tired of losing friends this way. If you are someone that is feeling fine at the moment, have a look around your circle of friends and take the time (and actually do this) to see how someone else is doing. A genuine “Hey bro, how are you doing? I’ve noticed you’ve been a bit down lately. Is there anything you want to talk about”? Will go down better than you think it will. We need to help each other out. There is so much negativity in the world at the moment and the human race could do with a fucking lift. Be that lift. Be that change. Reach out to someone less fortunate than you and offer a helping hand. Pay for someone’s coffee. Pull over and help that person change their tyre. Use the supermarket checkout operators name when you speak to them. I mean, Fuck. Hold the door open for someone. Doing small things like this, makes people feel valued, appreciated and loved. This world can be so ugly. Human beings can be so ugly to each other and lately I have noticed it more and more. It's disgusting. I've seen videos on Facebook where people are beating the shit out of each other and bystanders are filming it all and laughing. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH US!? HOW IS THIS O.K?!. We are (supposedly) the most advanced, clever and beautiful life forms on this planet and this is the kind of shit that we are doing to each other. That kinda shit makes me so sad and actually ashamed to be a part of the human race. We need to be ENCOURAGING not DISCOURAGING. We need to speak LOVE not HATE and for the love of Christ we need use our hands to uplift and comfort each other not to strike one another and beat each other down. So, I would like to offer my support to anyone that reads this blog. Most of you are friends anyway, so I would like to finish by saying: “Hey. How are you doing? Really? I have noticed you seem a little down lately. Do you want to talk about it? Is there anything I can do to help”? “I don’t want to get a text from a mutual friend of ours saying” “Hey, did you hear about so & so” …. I saw a guy at the gym today with a leg missing. He was massive, in a wheelchair and looked absolutely gutted. I contemplated going over to talk to him and asking him if his loss of limb was diabetes related. I thought – Fuck it, I’m gonna go over and give it a nudge and as I began my journey from the chest press to the hand-bike where he was waiting to jump on, he looked up at me. He smiled and nodded at me. It was in this moment that I realised that ‘of course it was diabetes related’. I always make excuses for myself and say that I can’t do some things due to having a clubbed foot and here’s ol’ mate smashing out some exercise from a wheelchair with one leg! I didn’t end up talking to him, I simply returned his smile and nodded back. It is amazing what can be said without words (thanks Ronan Keating). A few years ago I was in the passenger seat while Nikita (my wife) was driving and we were stopped at a set of traffic lights. On the footpath walking towards us was a dude with a massive ginger beard. He caught a glimpse of me and my beard and gave me ‘the nod’. I nodded back and then Nikita started cracking up. I looked over to her and asked
“Did you see that, oi”?! “Yes, I did! Oh my god that was awesome”!! It happens more often than not, and I think that it only happens in the bearded community. If you’re bearded up and you spot someone else with a beard do you flick them a cheeky little nod of appreciation? You bloody better. What I like to do when I’m out at social functions (parties/weddings/concerts etc) is scan the room for someone with a more impressive beard than me, go over to that person and congratulate them on having the ‘ALPHA BEARD’. If I can’t see anyone else with a bigger/better beard than mine, then I’ll assert my dominance and flaunt that glorious ginger beard that I’ve been sporting for the past 6 years, proudly! I can tell you right now the Alpha Beard of Alpha Beards belongs to my friend and colleague Mr. Duncan Heyde. You should see the beard on that dude! When I head into the Rock studios with him and Thane to do my weekly segment ‘Westie Lee’ I have to sit next to him and I’m not gonna lie, my beard feels sad. Sad that it will never be that glorious. If my beard was a person I’d slap him for not being better than he is. I’m really enjoying my time at the gym. I’m pushing myself harder and I am really enjoying it. I now ride for 15 minutes instead of 10 and I row for 1500 mtrs instead of 1000. I am not doing much by way of leg weights etc because I already have some hearty tekawarty legs going on so skipping leg day doesn’t really bother me that much. My body aches after these gym sessions but then I get to go and hoon the sauna for a little while. I try and stay in there for 20 minutes straight after my workout and get a decent sweat on but recently I have found myself only managing 10-15 mins. It’s really hot in there, man. I stay hydrated whilst in there and to tell you the truth – staying in there for 20 minutes is harder than my workout. Shit it’s difficult. It’s so damn hot (milk was a bad choice). Also, a lot of elderly Asian people in there and believe it or not – quite a few of them spit. Like camels. I told a lady off for it the other day. She looked at me with her ‘what the fuck are you on about’ eyes and continued to do it. Unbelievable. Today there was no hoiking going on but there was an awful lot of chatter (none of it in English). This is where some would put the whole “now I’m not racist, but” I’m not gonna do that. I’m not racist. I hate everyone equally. I don’t give a shit if people talk in their languages when there are other people are around. That’s fine. I do however take issue with the volume of their voices in such a confined and hot room. No one else is blabbing at the top of their voice. I think that there should be a ‘NO TALKING’ rule in saunas. Even if the conversations were in English they would have still been too loud for such a small hot room. After 14 minutes I headed out to go and swim a few laps in the cold pools. Great times. I finished up my laps with a nice easy back-float for a while. While looking at the ceiling I couldn’t help but think of that dude who was in the wheelchair with his leg off. I thought about how many people must look at him and know that the reason he lost his leg was because of diabetes and because he was simply too big. That could have easily been me had I not gone to the doctor and had myself checked out. I could have been the dude in the wheelchair with my leg amputated. I have spent time in a wheelchair before. For fun, not due to injury/illness. I went clubbing on a wheelchair a few years back. I got complete strangers to lift me off my chair, pull my pants down and place me on the toilet. It was hilarious. Maybe that’s a yarn for another blog. Until then. I have lost a further 1.6 kg’s making my total weight loss in the last 5 weeks 6.5 kilos. I’m feeling incredibly optimistic about my journey and have even had a few emails from people going through the same shit as me and who have told me that my blog has helped them through some hard times……So to Mike who writes “I used to drink a lot (not as much as you) and have stopped for the last 2 months. I feel a shit load better for not drinking but do miss the social side of it, especially having a beer with the boys after work. Recently went to the warriors here in Chch and I was with mates which were having a big session and I just drank water. I missed the laughs of getting pissed up with the boys and getting rowdy but at the end I woke up without a hangover and had a good day with my partner and daughter. “ I would like to say – GO YOU GOOD BUGGER! The ‘no drinking’ gets easier and how bloody awesome is NOT being hungover?!! All the best on whatever journeys you’re currently on. I’m really enjoying mine…… L Over the past 4 weeks I have been going balls to the wall mental trying to do this whole ‘healthy lifestyle’ thing. It hasn’t been easy and I have seriously thought about throwing in the towel and just succumbing to the fact that I’m a diabetic now and continuing on living the way I had been. Then I remembered a conversation that I had with my wife a few weeks ago. I asked her if our son Albie would remember me and remember all the cool things that we had done together, if I died soon. For example, his nickname is ‘monkey’, my daughters is ‘wolfie’ and mine is ‘draggy’ (short for Dragon) and we make little animal shapes with our hands and every single night before I put them to bed we tell a ‘Wolfie Monkey & Draggy’ story. It is the highlight of my day, telling that story with them and listening to the completely fabricated stories that my kids come up with. I let them drive the storylines because, well, because it’s adorable and thoroughly enjoyable. Last week Lucy and Albie told the story about how Wolfie, Monkey and Draggy had to get back some potions and some curtains from Mayor Dondinger who had stuffed them up his bum…..Hilarious. Now how could my son NOT remember that in his later years? My wife told me that he probably wouldn’t remember me and remember those kinds of things when he was older. She asked me
”What is your earliest memory”? She was spot on, too. I can’t remember anything before the age of 5 or 6. I don’t want to not be remembered by children, especially my son. So as far as throwing in the towel goes – The only towels I am going to throw are the ones that I have used from the gym and the only place I am going to throw them is into the fucking washing basket in the bathroom! I have joined the gym recently and have really enjoyed going. I have some new headphones (so no one can talk to me) and I just smash shit out. My programme is as follows………
“I HAVE LOST 5 KILOS IN THREE AND A HALF WEEKS” I am feeling really positive about the direction I am heading in and even better that it’s ME that is in control of it all. I mean, of course it’s me. Who else would it be? Anyway, this is a short blog and all I want to do is stress the importance of staying focussed and keeping on keeping on. The old saying ‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade’ could be used here but I prefer this one. “Fuck lemons and fuck lemonade. Sometimes life is shitty. Deal with it and change it”. THE PUB. On Saturday night me and the Mrs. went out to Father Teds with some friends for a 'leaving do' of sorts. Our friends Sophie and Ryan have gone on their big OE and flew out today. They are also engaged to be married and it just so happens that the band that they were thinking of booking for their wedding were playing on Saturday evening at Teds (one of Auckland's finest Irish bars) and they wanted to go and check em out and have the opinions of their friends before they booked em. Sophie hadn't told me about it and when I heard it was going down, I messaged her asking what the haps was. She said that she had every intention of asking me to go but then decided that she didn't want to 'invite me out drinking' because she knew I was trying to stop and be healthier. What a good bitch, and she really is. She is one of the sweetest, most genuinely nice people I have ever met! We got to the pub after the All Blacks game to find the big screen pulled down in the bar and a bunch of pissed up Irish fans watching the Ireland/Aussie game. Sophie was gutted as she had told the 10-15 people that had come to watch the band that they were going to be playing at 10 pm (as was told to her by the band), I laughed and told her that there was no way that the band would even pick up their instruments until after the rugby. Irish people will choose to watch the Irish play (and win) at ANY sport. It could have been an international table tennis match between Ireland and Ethiopia and they would roll out the big screen and smash 15 pints whilst watching. I grabbed a glass of water, knocked it back and decided to rock into one of my favourite 'dives' in the AKL CBD, 'Munsters', or 'The Munster Inn' as it is actually known. It is right next to Teds down some stairs and it is by far the nicest basement I have ever drank in. While I wasn't drinking this particular night, I still had a big smile on my face just being in that place. They used to do $20 jugs of Snake Bite (Lager, Cider and Black Currant syrup) and my god how the memories came flooding back to me. Snake Bites are so easy to drink and apparently they got banned in a few Scottish town because too many people were getting fucked up on them, like seriously fucked up. If you ever get the chance to punch a few pints of Snake Bite - Give it a go. They're glorious. After the ruggers we headed back up the stairs and back into Father Teds, There just so happened to be a free booth for us to sit in. So as the band started to play, my pregnant sister in law and I grabbed a seat in the booth and sat there sober and quietly observing the drunk punters. This one guy was hooking into this chick and it was equally hilarious and terrifying at the same time. She was keen to dance and flick him a little bumpin' and grindin' (yeah, sorry. I thought I could get away using that term but it clearly hasn't gone down well) Anyway she was busy gyrating her pelvis on his groin and as soon as she'd stop or change up her moves (which wasn't that often), he'd grab her face and start slobbering. I do realise that this makes me sound like a total pervert but honestly, It was right in our faces and I was a little 'herbed out' and found it quite funny. The band was OK. They opened with some pop song I'd never heard of and then played Pharrell's 'Happy' and then a song about some dude wanting to have a 'cake in the ocean' or something. It was a weird set, I tell ya but they were a good band; you could tell that they had been together for a while and weren't just a bunch of session musicians who get together for a jam every now and then. After the cake/ocean song, we gassed it off home. My sister Shannon was sober driving and all in all it was a pretty good night. THE GYM I had my very first gym session today (Monday 18th June). With my newly made vest (I cut the sleeves off of my Rock Fm hoodie), I whacked on my new wireless Beats Solo 3's and hit shuffle on my ROCKPOD playlist and started pedaling on the Exercycle. I set it to level 15 and set the programme to 'random hills' and started going ape shit. My belly was jiggling all over the show as my knees hit it and within minutes, I was a sweaty mess. this was a different kind of 'exercise' to the daily walks I have been taking. This was some high intensity shit, man. Which is what I need to be doing, getting a sweat on. My pulse reached as high as 178 and as it did I am pretty sure that I went into the future, it was that intense. As I sat there pedaling like a maniac and breathing like Tony Soprano, one of my favourite songs came on, MUSE 'Plug In Baby'. The opening riffs in that song still do something to me, it's magical; music. It really is. anyway............ I rode 5 kilometers for a warm up at level 15 and tackled some 'hills' on the way, then smashed out a 1.5 kilometer row on the rowing machine and HOLY SHIT, that was something else...... It was fun sliding back and forth on the chair but pulling the chain got old pretty quick. I started fading and could see myself telling myself '"800 meters is pretty good for a first effort, Lee" . Then, just as I was thinking about throwing in the towel, my ipod piped up as if to say "Fuck off, Lee. You're not quitting on me, cunt". 'I'VE GOT ANOTHER CONFESSION TO MAKE'!!! (Don't act like you didn't just sing that line in your head, I know you did) On came 'Best of You' by the Foos and shit did my spirits pick up along with my energy levels. Music, man. It's a fucking beautiful thing. To quote the late great Tom Petty ~ "Music is probably the only real magic I have encountered in my life. There's not some trick involved with it. It's pure and it's real. It moves, it heals, it communicates and does all these incredible things". Fuck it sucks that Tom Petty is dead. That one REALLY hurt. He was at the top of my 'bands or artists to see before I die' list, so was Bowie........ If you haven't heard the song 'Wildflowers' by Tom Petty, go and give it a listen. It is beautiful. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AldoDm2bV04&list=PLphdlTz7uh1Go2H16V65XHRrC_E1IjmHi I finished off with some weights (arms, shoulders, legs etc) and then rocked out for a sauna. I only lasted 6 - 8 minutes in there, man that bitch is hot (duhh)! I left the gym feeling quite good about it all and I had a real good feeling about the fact that what I was doing was a huge positive step in the right direction for my health and for my family. I still miss the booze, though. I almost gave in and thought about smashing some piss last Saturday night but I didn't. I had a rather interesting conversation with a big GC the other day about healthier ways to smack booze. Vodka soda's and lime, Gin soda water and lime etc..... There are definitely healthier ways to drink to excess if you're going to do that. I'm not too sure about it though. I know that if I do I'll feel all shitty with myself and feel like a failure. Why though? I have cheat meals every week where I eat something that isn't that good for me and would have way more calories than a bunch of vodka soda's.....Maybe it's because it's not just affecting my diabetes, but my liver also. I'm confident that I'll drink again, and if I do decide to smack some sooner rather than later I need to not be so hard on myself. I have made a promise to myself and to my family that I'll never EVER drink the way that I used to, again. It won't be every week and it won't be a box of beers then a bottle of top shelf. I'm sure that once in a while, if there's something on that is worth having a few 'healthier drinks' at, then I'll do it and not feel shitty about it. I don't want to cut it out from my life completely, I just want to be better at it, if that makes any sense. I want to be in control of when and how much I drink without setting myself limits. I'll never go back to being a massive 'weekly' drinker, but as I said, if there is something on that is WORTH smashing some piss for (in a healthier way), then I'll do it. Because I'm an adult and I can make my own decisions. I'll consider it a cheat meal, like the cheat meals I am currently enjoying that are healthier options than McDonalds or Burger King or KFC - I'm rocking Subway Salads or wraps, Pita Pit wraps and Salads and Chinese chow meins etc. Thanks for reading and for your continued support. L My wife and I hosted a surprise 40th for a family friend last night. I had organised this party before all this Diabetes shit happened to me and instead of canning the whole thing I had this thought
“You’re going to have to go to this thing no matter where it is, Lee. SO why not keep it at your house and then you don’t have to go anywhere and if you get bored or sick of watching everyone else smash piss and have a good time, you can just slink off to your bedroom, lock the door and go to sleep”. So, I did just that. The ‘surprise’ part of the night went down a storm and our birthday boy was totally thrilled about it. Then me and all 8 of the guests retired to the back of the property where we had lit a fire and had the sounds cranking. A real westie kind of hang out. I do bloody love a good fire, what male doesn’t? In fact. Ladies do me a favour. Watch your mans face the next time he (or someone else) lights a fire. If there isn’t a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye, he’s not a real man and is probably some sort of futuristic organic cyborg that has been sent back in time to steal the eggs from your ovaries so that he can repopulate his once thriving intergalactic race of cybergenic organisms. Bloody love a good fire, me! I love how drunk people get repetitive…………I must have heard the same fucking story about fishing three or four times from my brother in law and it’s not a bad thing because he tells his stories with such intensity and flare that it’s hard not be captivated by his yarns. On the third listen though, it got a bit shit. This was the first situation where I was in a position with the people in my life that I’d usually drink with week in week out. I was quite surprised at how much people were drinking. I never noticed it before, drinking was always so effortless to me and I’d never keep track of how many drinks I had had. As I watched these slaves to the drink keep pouring this shit down their gullet I wondered just how many of these ginger beers (my choice of beverage for the evening) I could, no, I would WANT drink in one night and I arrived at my answer before I even finished the thought. One. Max. Now these guests of mine were smacking piss like it was going out of fashion I reckon that the biggest drinker there would have had at least 24 drinks in the evening. There’s no way I would drink 24 cans of Coke or Sprite or any other soft drink for that matter…. I only had one bottle of Ginger beer (Bundaberg 750 ml) throughout the whole night and towards the end of the bottle I was thinking “I’m only drinking this because I feel like I have to finish it otherwise it’ll be a waste”. My reasoning for having a carbonated sugary drink was simple. This must be better for me than the copious amounts of piss I’d usually drink on a night like this. And I was right. I woke up this morning without a hangover and feeling great. I have to tell you – Waking up without a hangover was such a great feeling. I did have a few toots on a doobie that was being passed around and ended up getting way too high. I didn’t like it. I have such a low tolerance for that stuff these days because I very rarely (and I do mean VERY RARELY) smoke. Like a once, maybe twice a year deal. I felt uneasy and less confident and quite fidgety and agitated. I do miss getting drunk. I don’t think that substituting one vice with the other is the answer, here. Though smoking Satan’s Silverbeet certainly did bring back some nostalgia for me. I used to smoke a shit tonne of weed in my teenage years. Good times. I slunk off to bed around 12:30am without announcing it to anyone and the partied continued to rage on. I had a great time. I do miss getting drunk, though. The following day (Sunday) I had my BIG DAD OUT catch up. I run a group for dads in Auckland called THE BIG DAD OUT. We meet up every Sunday at The Hangar bar in their upstairs function area, we take our kids along and have a quiet beer (not me anymore) and enjoy some half-priced bar snacks and each other’s company. It only dawned on me the other day that if you don’t get the ‘BIG DAY OUT’ festival reference, it just sounds like a bunch of gay dads getting together. It’s a lot of fun and we have a good group of around 12-15 dads that come every weekend with their kids. WHERE WERE YOU TODAY, LADS?!! It was only myself and my good friend Glen, today! This was great though. Glen is a man of medicine, well he’s not a man made of medicine like some obscure character from The Mighty Boosh or anything, he’s a paramedic and works for St Johns (bloody good cunts those St Johns fella’s). He was a breath of fresh air to be around and his two boys Zac and Beau were a pleasure to be with, too. He didn’t offer me any dieting advice or tell me what kinds of exercising I should be doing (like everyone else has been doing). Instead he took the time to explain to me in laymans terms, just what diabetes is and just what is going on inside my body because of this. I’m gonna attempt to regurgitate what he said to me today and Glen, and I KNOW you’re reading this; if I get it wrong – you’re a shit explainer and should have done better. Right, so here we go in bullet point format.
In a nutshell, my body isn’t using the sugar that I am putting into it correctly and so my body thinks that what it needs to do is have more sugar when in actual fact, there is a shit load of sugar in my body all up in my bloodstream but there is not enough insulin to give it access to the cells that need to use it for energy and as we all know – unused sugar turns into………………….Fat. Correct, well done class. The medicine I am on (Metformin) is acting as an insulin substitute and is helping the sugar that I put into my body (which is fuck all, nowadays) get turned into energy for my cells. I have already noticed a massive drop in my daily water intake and I am no longer feeling tired all the time. Someone said to me the other day “Wow Lee, you have a spring in your step” My steps have springless for the past 6 years or so, so to hear that made me feel great. I have also upped my daily goal on my Fitbit from 5000 steps to 8000 steps. This may not seem like much for you, but for me this is massive. I’ll be getting over 10,000 steps in no time. I’m gonna make this Fitbit my bitch! I went to the pools the other day with my son, Albie. It was pissing down with rain and I could tell that he was itching to get out of the house. Usually we’d go and pick up my mother in law Val and go to the mall for breakfast then take her to work. Did you know that ‘Mother in Law’ is an anagram for ‘WOMAN HITLER’? My MIL is anything but. She is an absolute sweetheart, a great woman and a terrific Nan to my two beautiful children. She is also incredibly fun to tease. That’s what I do (actually that’s what ALL families do) tease the people they love. With my new found quest for health, I have no time for the west city food court and its many vendors. I could always go for a continental breakfast option but what sort of cunt orders a continental breakfast?
It only cost me $7 to get into the pools with the boy. $5 for my entry, Albie was free but I had to fork out an extra $2 for a swimming nappy that Albs had to wear because he’s not yet reached the age of four. We put our bags down and hopped into the family spa; a haven for fatties and elderly Asian people. As I sat down with Albie, this monster of a man smiled at me and gave me the ‘what’s up’ eyebrows. This dude was huge, like can’t fit through the door huge. If I’m morbidly obese I’d hate to think what this guy was. He had his own climate, he was that big. I can talk about fat people like this because I’m a fatty fatty fat fat, too (Just like how black people can say the N word). He looked over at me and said……….. “You want to use this Jet? It’s really good for your lower back” “Nah mate I’m all good, thanks though” “I haven’t seen you in a while, man. What’s it been? Like three months”? “I don’t think we know each other actually, I’m Lee”? “I’m James” (not his real name but just in case the actual guy reads this I don’t want to face legal action for defamation of character. “You sure you don’t want to use this jet? It’ll be good for your sore shoulder”? “I don’t have a sore shoulder”………. “You’re the guy with the bung shoulder, right”? “Mate. We don’t know each other”…. “Oh. Sorry”. I got up with Albie and left. I could tell that the only reason he was talking to me was because I was fat, too. I don’t want that shit. It’s different getting a nod on the street when passing another dude with a big ginger beard (which happens ALL the time). Does that make me a bad person? Maybe that dude was just lonely and wanted to have a conversation with someone. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with the 90 year old ex Yakuza mafia boss next to him. Maybe I should have been the person with the sore shoulder that he hadn’t seen in over 90 days. I didn’t want to, though. It was so blatantly obvious that he was only talking to me because I was fat, too. Like there were people sitting right next to him that he could have spoken to but he insisted on yelling across the pool to me. Tomorrow I have an appointment at the gym with a personal trainer to suss out my GREEN prescription (which is cheaper gym membership for people with a physical disability (my clubbed foot) and to put a workout plan into action. I’m just going to say to this guy.... “Look I don’t need you to ride my ass and get on my tits about my exercise etc. I am motivated and all I need form you is to recommend a workout plan for me that will suit my clubbed foot”. I need to do a low impact - high intensity style of exercise, like an exercise bike or a rowing machine, then some weights etc. I’m totally up for water-walking too. The good thing about water-walking is that my joints aren’t going to get punished from having to deal with the impact of my body mass like they would if I were on a treadmill for example. I am really looking forward to hitting the gym 3 days a week. I have Albie home with me on Tuesday and Wednesday and he is day-care Mon, Thurs and Fri and Lucy is in school Mon – Fri. So on the days where I don’t have any kids at home – I’ll drop ‘em off to school and day-care then hit the gym for some hard-core sessions and when I do have kids home with me we’ll just head out on a family walk etc. I want to be exercising every day and I want to be smashing out some high intensity exercise on the days I’m at the gym. I also need to get some good headphones to wear while I’m I the gym so that people don’t talk to me. West Auckland is a small place and I know a LOT of people so the chances that I won’t have to stop and talk to someone I know at the gym are about as slim as me. I’m not looking forward to it at all. “Hey Lee, how’s it going”? “You can see how it’s fucking going. I’m sweating up a storm on a rowing machine”. I’m happy to give you a small nod and then meet up in the sauna for yarn after my session but please don’t approach me while I’m mid workout. I know that sounds a little pompous and arrogant but I really do know A LOT of people and I’m sure that there a whole bunch of people that I know or know by association at the West Wave gym. Those are the worst ones, too. “Hey, you’re Lee right. You know so & so. He’s my neighbour/cousin/workmate/ whatever-the-fuck”…… “Yeah bro – I’ll see you in the sauna”……. Moving on to something a little more positive, now. A progress report. I am able to do up a suit jacket that I was not able to do up two weeks ago. I’m a Marriage celebrant and I marry people ALL THE TIME! When I wear a suit – It’s the best I’ll ever look. EVER! So it was a nice feeling to be all buttoned up along with the other guests at the wedding. I haven’t re weighed myself or redone my measurements and I won’t until I finish this 90 day prescription of metformin that I’m on (my diabetes medicine) but it was nice to see a small difference. I am also drinking a hell of a lot less water than I usually would (which indicates that my medicine is working well). I’d usually punch 4-5 1.5 litre bottles of water a day and now I’m lucky if I get through 1. I’m looking forward to shopping day on Wednesday and I’m going to buy more than salad. Low Carb High Fat meals are the way to go apparently. Two weeks of salads for lunch have taken their toll and I’m up for something else. I can’t wait for Wednesday! Cheers for reading. Text ROG to 3333 I completely lost my shit at the kids on Saturday. We were in the car and they were being loud and boisterous, like kids are, and I blew my stack big time. I’m so ashamed of myself. I know that every parent has lost their shit at their kids at some stage and probably felt terrible about it afterwards, but I really overreacted. They did nothing wrong, they were just being loud (loudness is in their DNA). I was just hungry. Hangry. I was rostered on air from 6am – 12pm that day and in my reptilian haste I forgot to take my egg and Metformin pill with me to eat in the morning. What a rookie error. It was 20 past 5 in the morning, however. Prior to this job, I didn’t even know there was a 20 past 5 in the morning…….. I had no money to buy anything for breakfast and if I did, what was I going to buy? I am avoiding bakeries and café’s like the plague in a bid to cut out shit food from my diet. I was so disappointed in myself. I usually have a great memory. I remember everything. Here are some of my friends’ pin numbers. 2742, 8696, 5590, 8699, 0151, 2302, 1430 & 6937. Never forget a pin number, especially when it is given to you in a pub. We were on our way to Silverdale for a family lunch and we were running late. I had made a gangster Cajun chicken salad that I was taking with me because I knew that there was going to be very little that I would be able to eat once we arrived at our destination. Our hosts were amazing and as predicted, there was SWEET FUCK ALL by way of low carb options available for their triple XL guest. The last time I had eaten was Friday evening at 5:30pm. This was getting stupid. I had to endure the 10 minutes of ‘how are you’s’ and ’what’s new’s’ before I felt comfortable tucking into my first meal of the day. I like to have a straight back when I eat so I ate my salad at the table. The same table where the bewildering array of delicious food that I can no longer eat was begging me to get stuck in. Much like how Russel Crowe has to ignore his hallucinations in the film ‘A Beautiful Mind’ I had to tell the little jam and cream pikelets, mini savoury pies and the macaroons that I can no longer indulge in their company. That there is no room in my life for them anymore. Then came the ‘left hook’ from our host. “Can I get you something to drink, lee? Beer? Bourbon, Wine?” Right then I had a moment of clarity and came to the realisation that not only was I battling diabetes and trying to lose weight, but I was also tackling a 15 year drinking problem, too. I have never admitted this out loud before (and technically, I’m not doing that by writing this) but I was an alcoholic. A functioning alcoholic, at that. The whole ‘no drinking’ is what is really going to kill me. I’m not used to it. It has been such a big part of my adult life for so long. It was my release. I need to replace it with something. Maybe I’ll replace it with tattoos. There are zero calories in tattoos. There are also zero calories in pingers, but I don’t think that an A Class drug habit is the answer. Kicking the booze is the worst part of this whole ordeal. To be honest, it was probably also a contributing factor in my mid car meltdown at the kiddies. My poor family, they’re the ones that’ll get it the worst. It’s always the ones closest to you that get it the worst. I politely declined the drink and said that I was happy with my bottle of water. I’m not looking forward to social functions with my friends, in fact; I’m just waiting for my mates to drop the line “The old Lee wouldn’t say no to a beer”. Well guess what? The old Lee isn’t here anymore. He’s been booted out of the car on the northern motorway for losing his shit at his kids. He’s been thrown out in the recycling bin, with all the empty Lion Red bottles and half-filled, flat bottles of Coke. That prick is gone, and he isn’t coming back. Fucking deal with it! When we got home I decided that I would have my cheat meal for the week. I wanted a KFC double down. Shit the bed did I want a KFC Double Down. Why did they have to bring them back now? NOW OF ALL TIMES?! It’s almost as if fast food establishments don’t care about my current state of health. Just watching the commercial for the Double Down fills my entire mouth with saliva. I ended up grabbing Chinese from the best Chinese takeaways on the westside – Golden Palace on Bruce McLaren Road. Seriously – if you’re ever on the west side of Auckland there are two things you need to do.
I decided to get Chinese because in the big scheme of things, isn’t the worst cheat meal there is. I went for chicken. Chicken Chow Mein. Loaded with broccoli, cauliflower, carrot and Onion, with the crispy noodles that get all soggy and delicious like. I also had 5 or 6 pieces of sweet and sour chicken, which are deep fried and full of sugar but, fuck you! What you gonna do about it? I’ll fight you! The portions were smaller, and it felt great eating something that I WANTED to eat, not something that I HAD TO eat. My brother grabbed me a drink to go with dinner, too. A 2.25 litre L&P. 2.25 litres!!!!!! Even when I was smashing fizzy drinks, there is no way I could do a 2.25 litre bottle of L&P. Unless it was used as a mixer. He said, and this is a direct quote from the little bro ~ “Seeing as you can’t have much sugar anymore I thought I’d buy you a drink that doesn’t have as much sugar in it as the others” …………...Honestly? Jesus……. The thought was there, just not the logic. My brother is also the same genius who once said that Ice Cream was a healthy option as a dessert because it is made up mostly of air (oxygen). Dinner was fantastic. I didn’t feel weird or like I had let myself down for eating takeaways. Baby steps after all. Everyone is giving me dieting tips and success stories of people they know, which I am grateful for, but please, let me figure this out on my own. I don’t want to go too hard too soon. At the moment I am focussing on two things
Chur. L First – Thank you for the support. I actually had to turn my notifications from Facebook off last night because they were doing my head in. What I failed to mention in my previous piece is that I am going to start a LCHF diet very soon. Sadly, I did not find out about this until after shopping day. My sister in law Shannon (who I have always called Yanny (not Laurel) ………Don’t ask - long story………O. K well I used to call her Yannon when she was about 11 or 12 and then it just got shortened to Yanny. I give people ridiculous nicknames, it’s kind of my thing. Take my sister Gary for example. Her real name is Carol-Anne. About 10 years ago when my wife and I were out drinking with my brother and his ex-wife (such a shame that that ended) we met a Scottish girl called ‘Ang-Harrod’. I know, right!? Poor kid. ANG fucking HARRAD! When I next saw Carol-Anne I started to call her ‘Harrod-Anne which then got shortened to ‘Harry’ then from ‘Harry’ to ‘Gary’ and she’s been that ever since. It’s not weird to anyone that knows us and when I introduce her to friends/colleagues of mine for the first time I say “Hey, this is my sister Gary” they look at her as if to say, ‘poor kid’ then they smile and say, “nice to meet you”. She is also known as
She is my sister and without a doubt my favourite sibling, so she deserves every bit of shit she gets. Shit – what a tangent! Anyway – Yanny told me about this KETO LCHF diet that she has been on and it sounds amazing so I’m going to be smashing that out real soon. This Extra ‘Lemon/Lime’ chewing gum loses its flavour really fast. Did anyone else’s parents tell them that the way to get chewing gum its flavour back was to put it in the freezer in a glass of water and a teaspoon of sugar? Man, parents can talk some utter shit! What a load of bollox. Sort your shit out EXTRA, seriously – flavour gone in about 24 chews. Look at me - Apparently beggars can be choosers. At least it’s sugar free ‘Excess consumption may have laxative effect’ good to know. In America instead of that little phrase on their sugar free products it says “WARNING – May cause anal leakage’………………ANAL. LEAKAGE. That’s terrible. Almost as bad as ‘Morbidly Obese’. I remember when I was a child I stole a massive bag of my mum’s diabetic lollies (OH FUCK THAT’S RIGHT – MUM HAD TYPE 2 DIABETES TOO) I failed to mention that in my previous blog. I took the whole bag down to the school at the end of the road and just had a massive bender on them. Mum asked at dinner where her lollies went and if I had taken them she said something like “you won’t get in trouble, I just want to know if you took them because I can’t remember if I left them at work or not”. I lied. I wasn’t going to get stitched up and smacked for taking those. Parents are notorious liars. When they say, “you’re not going to get in trouble” and you do, it’s like those people that start a sentence with “I’m not racist, but” ……….and then they go on to spout the most racist thing you have ever heard……She later found out that I did steal them because I had some pretty severe ‘Anal Leakage’. I’m talking a serious shit storm, a poo-nami, a chocolate waterfall, bum wees. You get the gist. Maybe consider making Bacon flavoured sugar free gum, EXTRA? I went to a concert last night. Sober. Free tickets from work – WHAT A JOB PERK! The first time in quite some time actually and I had a blast. Steven Adler the original drummer from Guns N Roses played the PowerStation with his band ‘Adler’s Appetite’. Before this though, he had a Q&A session on stage with his mum Deanna, hosted by Bryce Casey (who I work with at The Rock) who is also one of my broadcasting heroes. The gig was billed in two parts. The Q&A at 8:45 and then his band playing ‘Appetite for Destruction’ in its entirety. His band was actually pretty fucking good. It featured former American Idol contestant ‘Constantine someone or rather’ on lead vocals and ‘Sons of Anarchy’ actor and fill in motorcycle man, ‘Sean McNabb’ who fucked shit up on the bass!.............The Q&A was kind of weird. It was an obvious opportunity for his mother Deanna (who is 76 and would still totally get it) to plug her book and talk about her now ‘New York Times’ bestseller ‘Sweet Child of Mine – How I Lost My Son to Guns N Roses’. The Adler’s swapped stories from Steven’s previous life with the band and Bryce did an amazing job to keep Steven from going on tangents (He was a junkie for about 40 years and has recently had a heart attack and a stroke so the dude’s totally out the gate). At one point Adler said “When this guy (Bryce) shuts the fuck up we can play some fucking Rock n Roll” to which Bryce replied “Hey Look, Steven I’m getting paid to be here – If you want to play then you can play” or something to that effect, I can’t remember I was drun…………. NO. WAIT I WASN’T! That’s the whole point of this blog piece. I WENT TO A GIG AND DIDN’T HAVE A SINGLE DROP OF ALCOHOL. I did however, sneak a few sniffs of my date Josh’s Jack Daniels premix (which he caught me doing and looked slightly grossed out by) and I may or may not have been around people that were smoking the devil’s lettuce and some of the second-hand smoke may or may not have found its way into my body and mellowed me out a little…………MAYBE. As soon as the band started this lovely looking lass approached me with three beers and said, “Do you want these”? I politely declined. She grabbed me by the scruff and pulled me in close to her. Not gonna lie – I did think that maybe she could tell that I had been eating healthily for the past 4 days and could notice a change in me and that she wanted some of this ‘hot pumpkin ass’. She didn’t. She pulled me in to tell me that the drinks were her husbands and that he wasn’t ‘allowed’ any more drinks. Enter Husband. You should have seen the state of this cunt! He sat, no. He fell down on the couch next to me with a full beer and it shot up out of the glass and absolutely soaked my pants. Prick. I pushed him aside nicely and he looked up at me with eyes that seemed to have all signs of life drained out of them and were stuck in a silent scream. “Baaaahhhrghhh Smallarrghhh Schmorryyyyy” he muttered. We’ve all been there, pal. Slug some water and find your happy place. By song #3 in the set – he was out. What an absolute ringworm. You could tell that GnR was his favourite band and that he was just so fucking excited to be seeing one of the original members live that he went way too hard and peaked way too early. Rookie mistake. Slow and steady wins the race, mate. As I watched his wife fend off people who were trying to kick and humiliate her poor coma’d out little bitch of a husband, Steven Adler started slapping out a wicked little drum solo. My phone just beeped ‘New Health Records Received’. Shit I love this ‘Manage My Health’ App. KIDNEYS ARE FINE! NO protein in them (apparently that’s bad). I’m trying to avoid going on Google with my new-found diagnosis. They might as well call Google ‘Everything’s Cancer’. I tend to stay off the internet for that reason, it’s so negative. I mean you go on the internet and people hate ‘Forrest Gump’ That’s the BEST MOVIE EVER. Drum solo over. I’d been at the gig for about 90 minutes and I needed a drink. Thank god for free water stations at bars. It wasn’t Ice water, but it did the trick. I even brought a glass back for little Mr. ‘Can’t hack the piss’. That’s not fair actually. I’m sure he had had close to 7 peppermint schnapps. It was an amazing gig, really! I got to see an original member of GnR play an album that he helped write and record and toured extensively on, live! After the gig I bumped into my two bosses at The Rock near where I was sitting, Brad and Reagan. They both came over to me and were genuinely concerned about the state of my health. Reagan’s like some sort of wizard in the kitchen, seriously! Dude can cook! He offered to send me some recepies that are low in carbs and sugar and really easy and tasty to make. Brad offered me some solid support, too. He said, and I’m paraphrasing here. “Lee, I’m a little fucked up, but I read your blog earlier today. You got this, bro! It’s not going to be easy, but YOU FUCKING GOT THIS. We’re all behind you”. It’s was nice to hear that from those guys. They really do care about their staff and I felt validated and appreciated not only as an employee but as their friend, which is a rare find in a boss; a friendship. My first gig with no alcohol was a huge success. I managed to weasel my way backstage for the meet and greet after the show, too. Kane, the promoter (who must be fuckkkkkkkkkkkkiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnngggg sick of me by now) let me go upstairs with my friend Josh and get my album signed. Afterwards as I was leaving, he came over to me, tapped me on the shoulder and said…. “Lee you have to stop fucking coming to my shows. I’m sick of you and your bloody signatures” ……. He sounded serious. I hope he was joking, because that dude puts on some seriously fucking rad shows. I’m not gonna stop going to ‘em. NEVER! Kane if you’re reading this – I have a bottle of Jack here with your name on it, mate. I am so appreciative of all that you’ve swung for me in the past months. You’re a good cunt and you dress incredibly well. He then laughed and invited me back to the Ding Dong Lounge for a drink. I told him ‘maybe’, it wasn’t really the time or the place for the whole “I’m not drinking anymore because I’m now a diabetic” etc…. Shit. I’m a diabetic. Steven Adler was a trip to meet. I gave him a hug (well he hugged me. I’m not special, he was hugging everyone) and he signed my ‘Appetite’ LP with the gold paint pen I brought with me. He looked at the paint pen and said in a Californian stoner type of accent… “That’s gonna smudge, mannnnn. Don’t let it smudge” I assured him that I wouldn’t let it smudge. I then met his mother Deanna and thanked her for her time – She smiled and said, “you’re welcome”. Driving home from the gig I was filled with an incredible sense of pride and accomplishment. Normally that kinda night was a ‘bottle of Jack’ kinda night. When actually a ‘250ml of H20’ night sufficed. I only had two glasses of water the whole night, didn’t go to the pisser once and didn’t nick out the back for a cheeky dart (I’ve been off the darts since October 13, 2017). I didn’t miss any of the gig due to excessive alcohol consumption. I didn’t miss any of my favourite songs due to cueing up for the toilet and then getting stage fright at the urinal and ‘pretending’ that I’ve gone wees, only to have to go and line up again and wait for a cubicle. Most importantly, Last night I had fun…. Now – Off to Morepork for a Salad and some Insta-goodness. Love you, all thanks for the continued support, Lee or Diabet-lee………… (Nah. That’s a shit nickname). A week ago, I changed doctors. After having the same GP for the past 29 years, he decided to sell up his practice (Ranui Medical Centre) to the big boys at East Tamaki Healthcare……….EAST TAMAKI in RANUI?!. What absolute bullshit. This meant that no longer could I book an appointment with a regular doctor – They have adopted an ‘emergency room’ type of system, where you just walk in and get seen…………………eventually.
My very first appointment at my new medical centre was last Tuesday (15th May). I went in and informed my new GP that I wanted to get a colonoscopy as bowel cancer runs in my family. I know what you're thinking - I've seen the size of you, lee - No one runs in your family......... Anyway, 8 years ago, I lost my mother to bowel cancer and since then have had several aunties diagnosed with that bitch! He was very informative and told me that since I had had a first-degree relative die from bowel cancer under the age of 55 (she was 51) that he could refer me right away to a specialist and that it would be free. RESULT. He also thought he’d better have a poke around inside me and check my prostate while I was there. I’d only just met this guy and within ten minutes he was already three knuckles deep inside the border line having a wee feel of me prostate gland – All clear, nothing to worry about. You know what?! It actually wasn’t that bad………..Wait…..Strike that. It was in NO way enjoyable, but for something that was relatively pain free and over in a matter of seconds, it was actually O.K. Making eye contact with him afterwards was surprisingly easy, too. He has such beautiful eyes. With my sphincter still in shock, my new doctor then asked me when I last had my bloods done, and I stopped to think; I couldn’t think of any time in my adult life (since I was 18) EVER having blood tests done. That’s how shit my old doctors were. Maybe it’s down to me. Maybe I should have asked for them? Surely during my previous appointments over the past 14 years, my doctor should have sent me for blood tests……..Nope. So, I went to get a full set of bloods done two days later (Thursday). I’m covered in tattoos so needles don’t really bother me. It was over in a matter of minutes (like me in the bedroom) and I left in a relatively good mood as I was heading into my favourite place in the world – Morepork BBQ (the restaurant where I work as a social media specialist) for a spot of lunch (I smashed back a fried chicken sandwich and some collard greens - So fucking good)! and I whacked out a quick Instagram story. The next day (Friday) I was at Morepork again (working, not eating this time) I missed a call from an 09 833 number. I thought this was my sons day-care calling to tell me that he needed to be picked up (he had had a little cough that my wife and I thought may escalate while he was at day-care). It wasn’t. It was my new medical centre informing me that my new doctor would like to see me to talk about my blood tests on Monday……..Shit. This can’t be good. And it wasn’t. Type 2 Diabetes. FUCK! The first thing that went through my mind was that I was going to have to stop drinking (this is where most of my sugar intake comes from). In fact, when I changed doctors I had to fill out a form indicating my weekly intake of alcohol and I put 10 – 12 beers a week. I only did this as there was no space to write “on a usual night out I’ll start with a 12 box of Reds and then smash a 1L bottle of Jack Daniels when I’ve had enough of beer”. I have been drinking (to excess) every weekend (bar my year off the piss in 2013) since I was 15/16 years old. That’s a fuck tonne of sugar and carbs……. Never really bothered me, though. Even when my weight started to creep up I just thought “all bought and paid for, innit”? I took pride in the fact that I could put away as much as I could and fuck me running I could put it away. One year at a work function I had a 42 can wizard stick (I could hold it over my works balcony and it touched the ground floor)! I once drank 15 beers during the first half of an All Blacks game. But my claim to fame was the way I poured my glasses of Jack & Coke. “Lee mixes” they were known as. One particular night before a concert I did a bottle of Jack in 6 mixes. So, the notion that I could no longer drink like that truly sucked! Safe to say I had a pretty heavy drinking problem…….I wouldn’t touch a drop during the week but when the weekend came along – it was all on! My wife said, ‘you can still have one or two beers every now and then’ to which I replied – ‘I’m not drinking for the taste - What’s the point’?! 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! So, the action plan is simple – Stop being such a fat piece of shit. Kick the booze, eat better/less, exercise more and lose some fucking weight! I should mention that now that I am with my new doctor I have this app on my phone called ‘Manage My Health’ and it allows me to see ALL of my doctor’s records dating back to like, 1993. Every diagnosis is there for me to view, every prescription, all test results from every test I have ever had! It turns out that in 2014 I was diagnosed as being ‘Morbidly Obese’…WHAT THE FUCK?! No one told me that news. Why did I not get this information?! Had someone told me in 2014 that I was morbidly obese I’d have sorted that shit out, pronto! I mean, I always knew that I was Fat but I never knew that I was morbidly obese. I thought those cunts were the kind of ‘Jerry Springer show contestant’ fat. I’m not as bad as the diabetics that have to prick their fingers with needles and measure their blood sugars every day and shit, which is good. I am however, on medication called Metformin. “Metformin is used with a proper diet and exercise program and possibly with other medications to control high blood sugar. It is used in patients with type 2 diabetes. Controlling high blood sugar helps prevent kidney damage, blindness, nerve problems, loss of limbs, and sexual function problems” Loss of limbs? FUCK NO. NO THANK YOU. The first step in my new lifestyle is the eating. I’d fucking eat, man! I didn’t eat too badly, but the portions in which I would eat were fucking mental. I know what you’re thinking “working for an American BBQ restaurant is really gonna help with the eating healthy” – Well Morepork do salads, too. So, fuck you! I have cut out all carbs and sugar out of my diet. I am on day 4 of eating salads with 100g of chicken for lunch and 100grams of lean meat/fish and salad/veges for dinner. It doesn’t suck too much but I can see it starting to blow big time, real soon. REAL SOON. I am looking into healthy zero carb/sugar meal ideas and man, there are some gangster feeds out there I can smash out. I also don’t eat anything after 6pm (which is the hardest part) snacking was huge for me. A box of Pizza Shapes would go down like a sack of assholes after dinner. Either that or I’d smash back the left overs from dinner. Sometimes I’d eat and then go to bed. Well done, Lee. Well done. SO basically my daily meals are as follows Breakfast 8:00am – One Egg – Poached Lunch – 12pm on the dot – A salad with either 100g of Tuna or Chicken Dinner – 5:30pm – 100g chicken/fish/lean beef and salad or broccoli Then I don’t eat until my egg the next morning. (I chew a lot of gum and drink a lot of water and every now and then I find myself having the odd herbal tea). Next is exercise. I’d joke to myself all the time and think that walking 50 meters to take my daughter to her classroom from a car park, was exercise. The truth is, that was the only exercise I was getting (if you can call that exercise, which you can’t). I’d decline going on family walks with the dog because I was ‘in the middle of cooking dinner’ or because my clubbed foot was sore. I do have a clubbed foot and I have no ankle movement in my left ankle due to it being fused when I was 10 years old. It is literally only there to be stood on and it is having to carry ALL my weight as I alternate steps. I have no rotation, nor do I have any planter flexion etc. So, in my defence (slightly) walking and running as a form of exercise is not ideal and is very painful for me. Bike riding and swimming/water walking aren’t, though. Re introducing my body to regular exercise is the first step. I have been taking small steps in the right direction, like parking a street over from where my daughter’s school is and not parking right in front of the offices. Taking the dog on daily walks of about 1.5 k’s and while on those walks running up the hills that on the route. I have an appointment in early June to get a ‘green prescription’ which gives me cheap gym membership at my local gym West Wave. This gives me access to both the gym and the pools/spa/sauna. SO, water walking ang exercycles are waiting for me in the not too distant future. Good times. I will be writing a blog as often as I feel lead to. Sometimes they may be long pieces of writing and other times they may just be the ramblings of a cunt who is sick of eating fucking salads and cottage cheese. I’m not writing this to get sympathy – As I said, I know that this is my fault and I own that completely. I just thought this would be an easy way to let my friends know that the reason that I’m not going out for drinks with them or that I’m not keen on Sals or KFC for dinner anymore isn’t because I don’t like them anymore, but because I just can’t. For me. For my family. I just can’t. Time to get healthy. |
Details
AuthorLee Weir - Radio Announcer, Marriage Celebrant and Guinness World Record Holder. Archives
January 2024
Categories |