In the maybe not so famous words uttered in “Joe and the Volcano”: there’s always something.

In the scheme of things, I’m probably a non-compliant, uncooperative patient.

Having recently moved to another state, I now have the arduous task of convincing doctors that I’m not always going to be compliant, particularly when it comes to filling a bunch of scripts for medicines I know I’m not going to take, and running eagerly to a bunch of new specialists, just because I have diabetes.

I’m not altogether unconvinced that drug companies shouldn’t be non-profits, formed for the good of the patient, and that their research money should come from elsewhere. I am thoroughly convinced that profits push the whole industry way too far, and that we take many drugs that often do more harm than good. We sometimes forget that we do have choices.

Putting aside those drugs that actually cure, much of what is pushed at us is band-aid therapy at best – some stick, some don’t. Most that I have tried, well, it’s like ‘the cure is worse than the disease’.

Take, for example the drug that is supposed to protect the kidneys of people with diabetes – ACE Inhibitors. I tried several, all with varying, very unwanted side effects.

Around the same time, I spent about two years being constantly dizzy. Went from one doctor to the other and the best I got was that my Meniers disease had returned. Needless to say I don’t think had it in the first place, but thats another story. The dizziness, however was driving me crazy!

One fine day, I ran out of the ACE inhibitor. It took me a few days to get another script, and a small country pharmacist had to order it in. And then something unexpected happened. I noticed I wasn’t dizzy anymore! Could it be? Could it possibly be?

After some research I discovered that it was very probable the dizziness was from the ACE inhibitor. Now why couldn’t all those doctors have told me that? Probably the same reason i’ve been misdiagnosed with a bunch of diseases countless times, most notably with the wrong kind of diabetes. Nit an uncommon story.

I filled that script and threw it in the bin when I got home. I haven’t had any dizziness since! That was about 18 months ago! Try Ace inhibitors again? Hell no!

Statins do my head in. With the super-high cholesterol I’ve had since I was a teen, I probably should have been long dead by now, if you can believe the hype.I refuse to take them, having been through the gamut of what’s available here and suffering through the muscle aches and raised CPK. Now the new doctors want to start that trip all over again! Hell no!

So, just last week, I was having a hard time convincing my family doctor that I don’t need to see a podiatrist. Saw one a couple of years ago. I’ve never had much of anything wrong with my feet other than a tiny bit of neuropathy in two toes, most of which has now resolved.

So the last one I saw started lecturing me about why I shouldn’t go barefooted and how I could be doing myself great harm, like I’d been living under a rock for the last 30 years with diabetes and I hadn’t heard this before! Groan!

So my doctor was saying that the podiatrist would remove some minor callousing on my heel. Um, why would I want to do that? I am convinced that it protects my feet – objects have a much harder time getting through thickened skin than baby-soft feet! I’m the original Princess and the Pea. If there’s a grain of sand on my foot, I’ll know! I do a proper, regular pedicure and have comfortable shoes and sandals. Yes I’ve had broken toes – once with shoes, once without. Clumsiness more than anything. Take a scalpel to my heels? Hell no!

Do I really have to get to know and love going to see someone who actually chose a career in feet? Eeeew! Hell no!

Anyway, I’m having a hard time with new doctors and all the specialists I’m supposed to see. I have much of the paperwork and I can’t tell you how unmotivated I am to pick up the phone and make appointments because I know what’s ahead – lots of telling my story over and over again, and explaining why I’m not going to go where I’ve been before.

As birthdays go, this year (08/08) mine was… well… there’s no other word for it…. it was crap. Oh wait, that’s right! I’m supposed to be grateful I’ve made it through another year. At fifty-something, it starts to get a tad more precarious as each year passes.

As this year goes, it’s been a pretty horrid one, culminating in an even more extremely blah birthday.

Yes, I had some calls from my wonderful friends who’ve been around me for 20 and 30 years. It’s always a delight that they remember. Most of them are 10 hours drive away. If I could afford to fly them all up and we could go out and do daft birthday things.

It was my 50th when we were all last together. A riot of a party with a Middle Eastern theme and I did a beached-whale-belly-dance in full (but modest) costume! It was more than fun and fabulous. It all went a bit downhill from there. I miss them but I know I could never live back in Sydney. Too busy, to crazy, too everything for me.

Of my other close friends, 1 died early this year and 3 more are overseas with only 1 returning later this week, 1 over there for a few years and 1 coming to visit for 3 months, but nowhere near me.

Birthdays have morphed into days that I take stock. The more psychologically challenging stock-taking is still being mulled over.

Of the more mundane stuff…  What fashion item, shoes or makeup do I now need to throw in the bin because it has ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ written all over it? When do I have to get my hair cut short because I’m over 50? When do I have to go to bed at 10pm, have an afternoon nap, and have a fibre-filled breakfast?

When will I accept that the wrinkles and sags are here to stay and that I’ll probably never fit into the kind of fabulous clothing my 21 year old daughter wears, let alone look ok in it? (Oh, how shallow! Right?)

As I write this, I’m channel surfing and happened to land on the Fashion Channel. It always makes me want to throw up or cry. Wow those girls look fantastic! I was probably never that reed-thin or that gorgeous, but 20 years and more ago, I could certainly wear almost anything out of my mother’s clothing boutiques and get away with it.

Now count me in with weight-gaining insulin, post menopausal pounds and a penchant for good food and you get beached-whale – almost. Not quite in the BMI obese category but hovering and at times, falling in.

These days, I can’t wear heels (sore feet and lack of balance), and designer clothing is made in one size either way of reed-thin and often priced out of my league, so that’s out too. In fact, this past week, I’ve been hobbling around with a fractured toe on my left foot (the middle one), wondering why I still don’t have a car with automatic transmission (because they’re always $2,000 more than I can afford) or special shoes for broken toes.

But there was one good thing amongst a few others today – cake!

I was going to makeanother Persian Love Cake, but yesterday, time got away from me. Here’s the one I made last year for my husband’s birthday.

Theoretically, if you have insulin, you can eat whatever you want. On the other hand, theoretically, if you have diabetes, if you keep the carbs down, you can control the diabetes much more easily and blood glucose spikes can be reduced. Both theories are true. I like a combination of the two.

If your diabetes is out of control, lower the carb intake to start with. It goes a long way to help the control.

On birthdays, all that flies out the window.

I have cake-eating with insulin-taking down to a fine art. And while a store-brought piece of cake doesn’t come with carb instructions, I’m pretty good a guestimating after the first bite.

So, tonight my fancy was taken by what was labelled as a Jaffa Chocolate Cake. Yes indeed – carbs multiplied by carbs!

The first bite was heaven. I could taste the dark chocolate, orange and the surprise of coconut. It was unexpectedly moist, with a measurable layer of thick chocolate ganache on top.  As cakes go, this one took the cake!

With an insulin pump, if you get the carb-guestimate right, it’s so much easier than trying to manage a fat-laden (read: long-absorbing), high carb slice of heaven with injections, although certainly it can be done.

A combo bolus over 2.5 hours did it. At 4 hours post ingestion, I was a tad high at 9.0 mmo/l (162 mg/dl), but all things considered and without an exact carb amount per slice, I think I did ok. A quick correction bolus and I was done.

Maybe it wasn’t such a bad birthday after all! Did the cake make up for the absence of close friends? Um.. I think the right answer is ‘no’, but my honest answer is… kinda… yeah it did, for a few scrumptious chewing and tasting minutes!

From The Age story, Healthy Diet Too Expensive

Eating a Mediterranean diet rich in fish, olive oil, legumes, fruit and vegetables may strengthen the heart but the cost strains the wallet and may deter healthy eating, according to Spanish researchers.

They’re not kidding! While a healthy Mediterranean diet has more carbs than a low-carb diet, try doing low-carb on a tight budget!

Don’t you love how doctors with six-figure incomes can sit there and pontificate about what we should and should not be eating. They haven’t a clue or any advice about how some people are going to afford to do so.

Consider a loaf of bread, often the whiter the cheaper, at say $2.50. Add to that some cheap toppings. The bread and the toppings most likely can last several days for lunches. So say $7 for all that. I’m dealing in Australian dollars, but would equally apply anywhere.

Consider a large bowl of salad. The lettuce alone would be $2-$3. The whole salad could easily cost $15-$20. Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, parsley, witlof, bell peppers, pea sprouts and more. No root vegetables. Or I could make a high-carb potato salad for a few dollars.

Add to that meat, chicken or fish, and you’ve got a very expensive meal. Multiply that for other meals in a week and you’ve got a healthy diet that is definitely too expensive.

If you’re on a pension or are a low-wage earner, trying to feed a family, it’s totally impossible.

Instead, it’s fine for governments and medical insurers to fork out millions in trying to fix the problem instead of being proactive and preventing it in the first place. Not sure what the answer is, but food production somehow needs to be subsidised. It’s getting far too expensive to eat well.