Sixteen Tons

What do they put into diapers these days?

Yes, I know that, but there must be more. Since my daughter and almost two year old granddaughter have come to live with us the weight of our weekly garbage output has doubled. I swear it. The most notable addition is a steady output of disposable diapers.

I’m no neophyte. I helped raise the toddler’s mother after all, and her two aunts. I assure you they knew what to do with those squares of white fabric we (well, my wife) wrapped around their butts. Back then we had a semi-weekly laundry service pick up the contents of a sizeable white pail: wash, fold, bundle, return. I always pitied the service’s delivery van drivers. Theirs were the only vehicles coursing winter’s sub-zero streets with all windows wide open. And if a diaper van unexpectedly cut you off on a hot, still, August by-way it simply meant the driver was too teary-eyed from ammonia fumes to see. You had to make allowances, but still the service disappeared.

So the modern generation uses disposables, but I don’t remember diapers being so heavy. The midget poop factory now stomping our grounds must put out her own weight weekly. Can that be right? Can it be natural? Or are disposable diaper manufacturers pumping their products full of heavy chemicals and assorted weight adding whiz-bangs to fulfill the promises of their happy-land commercials? If so, if this carries on, our little girl will have Arnie Schwarzenegger’s legs before she’s three.

The problem is that, coincident with our increased output, our city is working to divert more garbage from landfill to other assorted projects. They’ll only take one container of non-recyclable garbage, 23kg. max, and apparently nobody is making new and exciting products from what my granddaughter and her colleagues put into their diapers. That’s a shame as this might be humanity’s most dependable natural resource. Nevertheless, ecological concerns don’t slow our mini-pooper down, so we’ve something of a disposal dilemma and it’s up to us to deal with it.

It’s amazing how the introduction of one small child into a home messes with household routines. I am a lucky guy. My daughter is a trained chef, willing and able to incorporate the Canadian Diabetes Association’s healthy eating guidelines into the family diet. I appreciate her support, but declined her offer. It is easy, for me anyway, to let someone else take responsibility and blame them when things don’t work out because something else comes up.

That’s not just unfair, it doesn’t work. I’m the one who must decide when to have a rare slice of chocolate cake, a banana or to skip desert. When other priorities arise, I’m the one must create the time and space for my balanced meal instead of partaking from the thick, cheesy, ordered pizza. I’m the one who compromised my health, and I’m the one committed to dealing with the consequences. Otherwise I may not have the strength to put out the garbage.

Who Me?

It’s almost two months now since I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, sliding over the blood-test line from “in danger of developing” to “yep, you’ve gone and done it.” I can’t say I was surprised. Through much of my adult life I exercised regularly but I also developed a big appetite. When exercise became difficult as I gained weight and switched careers, the hunger remained. My eyesight was in decline. I felt bad more often than I felt good.

Now I must accept that I am old. Just shy of 60, I knew I was old but now I must practice the routines of old men: remembering if it’s the pink pill with breakfast and the white pill with dinner, the white pill with breakfast and the pink pill with dinner, or both; poring over restaurant menus and grilling wait staff for acceptable selections; pricking fingertips six times plus daily without mewling; taking frequent, long bike rides to nowhere in particular. I’m not getting old; I am old. I am also obese. Well over 300lb. Accepting these facts is the most challenging consequence of my diagnosis.

One benefit of diagnosis is that I now have help establishing habits to control my diet. In fact, with the guidance of the nutritionist and pharmacist who are part of my family doctor’s medical practice group, I am already losing weight in small but steady increments. I feel good more often than not. Good enough to start writing this blog.

Diabetes is an existential disease, a part of life. There is no “cure”. I can hope and pray it away until the cows come home, but if I don’t get on with keeping on I’ll be home with my maker well before the bovines arrive. Diabetes is just one more part of what Camus identified as the absurdity of existence and, like Camus, my choice is to embrace the absurd. As a writer of crime fiction, I’ve decided that the protagonist of my series’ novels and short stories (whom some critics have astutely noted superficially resembles the author) will also be diagnosed with diabetes. How will low blood sugar affect a criminal investigation? I figure to know that soon enough.

To keep track of the diabetic’s daily routine for the fiction, I’ll maintain this diary. Another routine to help maintain my work routine and my new health routines both: who says I’m not still a glutton? If you’re one of the nearly 250 million people worldwide who are affected by this diabetes epidemic, or among their friends and families, I hope you’ll find this blog helpful. Or at least amusing.