Exquisite Timing Leads To A Clinical Trial

Back in February (Pre-Diabetes Wake-up!), I shared with you my doctor's warning about controlling my glucose levels and my weight.  She referred me to a nutritionist, and because of the pre-diabetes, I was placed in a class for others like me -- on the edge of an unsettling diagnosis.

In the class, I learned a lot about pre-diabetes and the ways our bodies may or may not process sugars and carbohydrates as well as they used to. I also got a food plan, personalized for me. 

I started. I followed the plan. I was losing weight. My blood glucose levels were slowly dropping. But I found that I was generally more tired and not feeling quite right.

Here Comes EXQUISITE TIMING.  One of my favorite miracles of life.

You've experienced it. I know you have. It's when a chance occurrence drops into life at just the right moment to make a difference, to avoid calamity.  Like...

It's been raining all day, but just in time for a wedding ceremony, the sun pours through the stained glass windows bathing the couple in light.

I'm trying to decide if my mother should have a special brain operation to drain the rising fluid in her tissues, and on my flight to Kansas City, a neurosurgeon who does this kind of operation every day "just happens" to sit next to me and offer advice when I need it most. 

My car dies on a busy highway and a "repo man" with a tow truck appears from the nearby gas station and says, "I'm not the tow service you're calling, but I can get you out of the road and safely into that gas station. Hop in!"

There's even a race horse named Exquisite Timing. Don't know if the horse lived up to its name, but I'm sure the owners hoped that it would.

Fred Campbell, in his book Religious Integrity for Everyone: Functional Theology for Secular Society, describes Exquisite Timing as that experience we all have when events and lives and nature all converge in one point in time to create some extraordinary, inexplicable outcome. 

Theist that I am, I call these "God Moments". 

So here I am with pre-diabetes and a food plan that doesn't quite work and on the last day of my class, the instructors hand out a flyer for a clinical trial for adults with pre-diabetes run by a Duke University nutrition group. Sounds perfect. Is perfect.

I call. I'm accepted into the trial, into the experimental group. And off I go into 16 weeks of a new journey in this healthy living change I'm trying to make. 

EXQUISITE TIMING. 

I'll let you know how the trial went next week.

Blessings on your day... and keep an eye out for exquisite timing!

Spring Poetry Is For the Birds

I wrote this poem a while back for my church literary journal. It's not great poetry, but it's fun, and always puts me in a spring mood. Enjoy!

Feeder Birds

The Wren chirps loudly in the Carolina morn,

Waking everyone up to a day reborn.

No alarm clock can match him for punctuality.

            Flitter, Twitter

            Sing a Song

Singing lifts our spirits until all sadness is gone.

The Juncos arrive, dressed in their best

With slate gray jackets and snow white vests,

Eating “four on the floor” and making no fuss.

            Flitter, Twitter

            Pick and Peck

Respectful good manners are always welcome in a guest.

Mourning Doves seem none too bright,

With their doleful eyes and languid flight,

They can sit still for hours like gray balls of fluff.

            Flitter, Twitter

            Coo, coo-Coo

Steadfast life partners. Where you see one, there will be two.

Bold Blue Jay dives onto the deck

Like a kamikaze with no thought to his neck,

The other diners scatter in a whoosh and disappear.

            Flitter, Twitter

            Awk! Awk!

The bully in the crowd is never hard to spot.

A flash of red says Mr. Cardinal is HERE.

His Mrs. blends with the foliage, but is always near.

He stands guard duty, watchful and attentive.

            Flitter, Twitter

            Watch and wait

A quiet meal is the reward after patience’s price is paid.

The sprightly Chickadee sports a cap of black,

Hangs on the wire tube swinging forward and back.

Swooping in, flying out, playing snatch-and-grab.

            Flitter, Twitter

            Chick-a-dee-dee

Oh, that we all approached life with such unspoiled glee.

Copyright LaVerne St. George, January 2009

Pre-Diabetes - More than a Simple Phrase

From my mother's side of the family, I carry a risk of Type 2 diabetes. Since all of my aunts and uncles developed the condition, the risk is strong. Over the past three years, my fasting glucose (sugar) levels and HbA1c numbers have been slowly rising. They rose out of the normal range and into the "Pre-diabetes" range.

I knew these numbers were trouble. I knew I needed a change in diet and exercise. 

Diet-and-exercise. This phrase has such a familiar rhythm now, doesn't it? Diet-and-exercise, diet-and-exercise. We hear it from our doctors and nurses, on television, in ads. The words run together, and the reality blurs. So I settled my weight in the obesity range and kept it there, leveled off my activity, and drifted.

In October 2018, the drifting screeched to a halt. The HbA1c number (which measures the average of your blood sugar over the past 3 months) reached the bottom of the DIABETES range. Gasp!! Wake up time. One thing I do NOT want do is tell any insurance company that I have a diabetes diagnosis. My nurse practitioner gives the ultimatum. Four months. Count 'em. Four. The HbA1c needs to be back down in the pre-diabetes range in four months... or else. 

To manage this, she suggests Carbohydrate Counting so I'll lower my carbohydrate intake from starch, sugars, fruits, and milk, and a nutrition class. I'm on board. The nutrition class is also a wake up. 

Here comes the point.

I'd been strolling along in the pre-diabetes range for three years. YEARS. The nutritionist explained that during that time, my body has been floating in excess sugar, not a whole lot, mind you, but enough that at the cellular level, and especially at the nerves, damage is already beginning, causing my body to age faster. 

Oh no. Aging faster. This is not what I want to hear. Clearly I needed to hear it.

And you might need to hear it, too. If your doctor or nurse tells you that your blood glucose or HbA1c is in the pre-diabetes range, don't shrug and wait for the diabetes diagnosis. Ask for help, see a nutritionist, figure out a better food plan, move more, start monitoring your fasting glucose levels. Get motivated. Now. Your nerves, your cells, and your body will all thank you for it! 

For more information, see:
Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) Test for Diabetes [WedMD]

Living Healthy [WebMD]

Eating Patterns and Meal Planning [American Diabetes Association]

Get busy spending your time being healthy, or get busy spending your time managing a disease. Your choice. 

I'll let you know how my choices are going. Have a great day!

Fruitful Meditations on a Dreary Morning

I caught a cold this week. It's the sore throat, headache, sneezing kind. Annoying, tiring. To add to the general misery, rain has been falling for two days, so no bright Carolina sun to improve my health or my mood. The cold also means I haven't gotten to the grocery store for basics, and since Hubby has been at a retreat for a couple of days, this morning the refrigerator looks very empty. Breakfast? A bit of a challenge.

All that's left in the fruit bin is an apple.

One. All by its little lonesome in the drawer.

We have a freezer-top-fridge-bottom, so I seem to be looking down at the apple from the top of a steep hill.

I'm not in the mood for an apple. I want an orange. Something with some Vitamin C. Head cold here. I might have the apple for lunch, but not for breakfast. Not today.

Aha! I remember a bag of frozen strawberries in the freezer door. I keep the strawberries for smoothies. I reach for the bag, then hesitate.

Frozen strawberries will never be fresh ones. This is a fact.

Still... I grab the bag and read the instructions. "Thaw for 25 minutes at room temperature. Best eaten when ice crystals remain in the fruit." Makes sense. Frozen strawberries with no ice crystals are smoothie- or sundae-worthy. Eating alone? Not so much worthiness. I turn back to the bag.  "Grown in Peru."

Huh. We get out-of-season fresh strawberries from California, frozen ones from Peru. Whoever thinks we're living without global connections has not read a food label lately.

I start with the strawberries in a small bowl but quickly realize the berries will thaw unevenly. So I dump the berries on a plate and spread them out gently with a fork so each berry has its own thawing spot. "Thaw for 25 minutes..."  Not a good instruction for strawberries. On a plate. Thawing.

Eating frozen strawberries takes some patience.  With the tines of the fork, I gently tap the ice crust covering each berry until the crust lies on the plate, the knobby impressions from the berry dissolving as the ice melts. I'm thinking about the Peruvians picking strawberries, and all the people involved in the packaging, shipping, stocking and grocery check-outs. I'm grateful they are part of this strawberry chain.

I have to judge the thaw-rate of each berry and pick which one to eat next. The one just at the right point -- just enough ice crystals remaining for firm-ish texture, yet soft-enough to release that sweet, strawberry flavor. My attention is focused on my task. I'm present with my strawberries and my watchful-waiting.

When I choose my berry, it makes all the difference in the world to have a small dish of maple syrup on hand for dipping. I send an arrow-prayer up for my grandmother who taught me a thing or two about maple syrup.

Frozen strawberries will never be fresh ones. But breakfast just became a chance for a mindfulness meditation and a sweet treat. Seems like a good deal to me.

Have a wonderful day!