It's All About Control -- and I've Got NONE of It!

I've had it.  I really have.

I am 44 years old, and my body is falling apart...

I was diagnosed with this stupid disease about 8 years ago.  And I've had plenty of ups and downs, including not keeping up on this particular blog.

I've gone through a number of medications, and have now had some success on this current iteration.

My diet was going fine at the initial diagnosis, but over the years, I've fallen into old habits.

I've a sweet tooth to rival anyone else on earth, and this desire MUST BE QUENCHED.

Fine.  I've made it through with some high sugars -- no side effects from the myriad of drugs to control all of this stupid diseases issues.  And my sugar levels have basically stabilized to a decent level.

To prepare for a screen role, I started working out fairly religiously in June of 2018.  I was doing some exercise about 6 days a week.  Once I shot the film, that decreased of course -- but I was still on that particular wagon.

Late fall of 2018 -- I got a weird infection in my right hand pinky.  Thought it came about from an overly-trimmed nail, followed by some deep cleaning of the house.  Something bad got in there and set up house.  Antibiotics later and some painful squeezing by my doctor -- "You gotta get it out!" and the infection was evicted.

I had a weird little thing in my nose around the same time -- some sort of minor infection -- and my nose swelled up.  That went away on its own.

I was very open about the next thing -- come late November of 2018.  I had a little cold sore on the bottom of my lip -- something I've gotten every couple of years (somewhere on my mouth) for several decades.  No problem.  I put on some Campho-phenique (sp?) and it's gone in a few days.

But not this time.  It turned into a full on infection (while I was on a road trip in Arizona).  Long story short, when I arrived back in LA, my doctor took me straight to Emergency and I was then admitted.  My lip was so swollen and infected, they had to cut it open on the inside and drain it.  I was also put on a massive cocktail of IV-antibiotics.

To this day, I have scar tissue on the inside of my bottom lip.  Will it ever completely go away?  Who knows, but there is a lump inside of there which my tongue never stops messing with...

After one night in the hospital and then two weeks or so of oral antibiotics (as well as that initial PAINFUL draining of the pus) -- the lip healed and yay!  -- and things were headed back to normal.  Of course, with the use of the "horse-pill" antibiotics, I dealt with what must have been minor kidney stones.  I'd never experienced them before, but based on the pain in that zone, and (one time) some dark urine -- it was clear that this was the problem.  It all went away once the drugs ran their course.

I was then put on antiviral meds -- to basically keep the herpes in my lips at bay.  Gross... but it's the truth.

A few weeks after all of this I began to get weird "zits" under my right armpit.  One of them got infected and turned into an honest-to-goodness abscess.  Again, gross -- but it's the truth.  I was putting tea-tree oil on it, lightly trying to drain it and doing warm compresses.  Finally went back to the doctor (this was early 2019) and more antibiotics.  What the fuck are these things?  They're only under one armpit.

Fine.  Antibiotics did the trick.  Another painful SQUEEZING by the doctor and there's now a scar under my pit for that one.  Several of these little boils (or whatever the fuck you wanna call them) at different areas of "poppability" gone.

A couple of weeks following the clearing of the boils/zits/annoyances, they returned.  I had also taken doctor's advice to wash my pits with a special (READ: EXPENSIVE) over-the-counter soap -- basically the soap surgeons use to prep for surgery.  At the same time as the return of the zit/boil/annoyances -- under only my right pit -- nothing under the left -- I had a terrible case of dry skin on my face... around my ears, around my eyes, so much so that I aged in my eye region by 30 years or so.  My skin was soooo taught, it was actually cracking.  Only on my face.  Went back to using Dove to cleanse myself and used a prescription shampoo, which I was told to use not only on my scalp, but around my beard region.  Apparently I had an allergic reaction and discontinued use.  I was using plain old moisturizing lotion on my face and it was BURNING.

A bit of a side-note -- I've been to the doctor so many times over the past many months, I'm unsure of what happened at what visit -- but I digress.

On top of all of this, I had a rash on the tip of my dick.  Concern over some of my diabetes drugs -- 1 in I-don't-know-how-many-people apparently have a reaction to this drug, and basically their ball-sack can rot away.  Great.  That's now cleared up.

While on a recent vacation -- I was dealing with the armpit boils -- doing the compresses, lightly draining (this is a gnarly process) and washing with the EXPENSIVE soap.

At the tail-end of the recent trip, I got a cold.  The right armpit boils are on their way out.  Face is still dry as fuck -- no matter how much I moisturize. 

Note:  The armpit boils seem to be showing up elsewhere... in normal zit places.  Like ingrown arm hairs, I've had a few too many zits there.  They don't get infected and go away.  Then I got a massive boil/zit on my nose.  It was all swollen, but now on its way out.

Cold is gone, but now I have what I would guess is cellulitis in my right cheek.  I've an appointment already in place with my dermatologist -- in three days -- to address the dry as fuck face, but now I'll have to address the nose zit and swollen cheek issue... that is, if I'm not dead first.  Per online paranoia, cellulitis (if that's what it is) can become dangerous.  I'm reminded of the doctors telling me that the lip situation was on the verge of turning into blood poisoning, and that my timing of coming in was right on the nose.  Jesus.  Is that what I'm dealing with here?  Fuck this disease.

Of course, diabetes is well known to have a dire effect on your immune system... and so it seems clear that this is the bullshit at play now.

The point of this long diatribe?  I've gotta make changes.  I'm fucking 44 years old and my body is falling apart.  I've got this disease on both sides of my family -- so basically, I'm fucked no matter what I do.  But I've gotta do something to ward off these latest symptoms. 

Can my body get back to normal, if I FINALLY make the necessary changes to my diet?  I've gotta keep up on the exercise of course, but that's only half of it.

And what the fuck help is it that Randy's Donuts opened a location A HALF A BLOCK AWAY. 

But I can't pursue acting gigs, knowing that at any moment, my face might explode with zits, or that it'll look like I was punched in the face by Mike Tyson. 

I'm through feeling like crap and worrying about what's coming next, or if the pus in my armpits will make a grand return and leak all over my t-shirts.

I hate how poorly the human body is designed.  It's a cluster-fuck. 

So I'm reexamining my diet and my choices.  I made exercise a part of my schedule and part of my habits, so why can't I do that with diet?

But dammit -- this sucks.  I LOVE FOOD. I LOVE SWEETS.  I LOVE EATING.

So -- let's see how this goes.  Even if these flare-ups of skin issues are only partially related to my diabetes -- I still have to make these changes. 

And who am I kidding?  OF COURSE they're because of my diabetes.  What a stupid disease.

I have no control.  But I need to get control, or I'm dead.

That is all.