Living with Diabetes- - split from - Is $25 per day feasible$

wasanah2 said:

Food that's good for you doesn't have to be expensive.  There are bags of natural brown and white rice there and also good sized bags of beans and other legumes.  Frozen bags of fruit and veggies and of course, for you Mr. Savage, the incredible edible egg. 

Click to expand...

While good food "doesn't have to be expensive", I find that it often is. In many cases that's the very reason people choose junk food and/or fast food over healthier choices. The cost. The bad food is almost always cheaper and often tastes better (even if it is mostly chemicals and preservatives.

I myself have Type II Diabetes and I am thankful that at my age I no longer like candy bars and cookies and things like that. Occasionally I do eat something, but I am always disappointed. That stuff tastes like chemicals to me. Even fast food tastes disgusting to me. But when it comes to diners and cafes I love a good juicy cheeseburger. Or give me a nice New York Pizza! Not the healthiest food, but I do eat it.

Now you're talking!  New York Pizza!! 

Sorry to hear about you having diabetes.  Man, you really have to take care of yourself.  Type 2 is just as dangerous as type 1 when it comes to organ damage.  My daughter doesn't like sweets either.  My husband said the same thing, that treats taste like chemicals.  I think it's part of your body naturally trying to make you consume less of them.  Another thing to be careful of (and you probably already know this but I'm an old busybody) is your feet.  My husband didn't have any issues with his, but my daughter, only 22, has significant neuropathy issues.  When she goes camping with me, we don't travel long before she needs to get out and walk some to get the blood flowing to her feet again.

She can't walk long distances and so she can't hike much or do a lot of things I know she would enjoy otherwise.  It's also really bad if your feet get too cold, so if you're in a cold climate, I hope you'll take extra measures to keep your feet warm.  This lifestyle is more difficult with diabetes.

In the following post here I was telling someone I already have the neuropathy. The nerve damage makes it so I feel not only numbness in both feet, but phantom pains that can be like hot coals...walking on glass or even bee stings. It is the combination of those issues that forced me to file for disability. So yeah, I am watching things more than ever, but at the same time, without health insurance drugs and test strips get very expensive.

As for New York Pizza, I am from NY originally...Watkins Glen, to be specific. I miss the pizza more than anything.

https://vanlivingforum.com/showthread.php?tid=30761&pid=383299#pid383299

A Savage Adventure said:

In the following post here I was telling someone I already have the neuropathy. The nerve damage makes it so I feel not only numbness in both feet, but phantom pains that can be like hot coals...walking on glass or even bee stings. It is the combination of those issues that forced me to file for disability. So yeah, I am watching things more than ever, but at the same time, without health insurance drugs and test strips get very expensive.

As for New York Pizza, I am from NY originally...Watkins Glen, to be specific. I miss the pizza more than anything.

https://vanlivingforum.com/showthread.php?tid=30761&pid=383299#pid383299

Click to expand...

Oh man, I feel for you.  I do.  I know what my daughter goes through.  She describes it the same as you do.  Travel doesn't help.  She and I stay in one place longer than we would if I were alone.  My daughter isn't on disability, but I think she will end up on it.   Her father's employer gave her free insurance till age 22 if she stayed in school.  She did and now that she's 22 they allow me to pay 200 a month for insurance for her until she's 26.  THAT"s a bargain.  That will get us time to get her on disability.  Insulin costs means that her insulin costs between 2 and 3 grand a month.  We can't pay that!  So she will have to get on disability or get a really nice job with insurance.  She's a college grad, but I tell you, she doesn't have the energy for a full time job and with the pain of the neuropathy, well I don't have to tell you, you know.

I did without insurance for many years, but when she turned 22, my late husband's employer gave the free insurance to me!!!  I would have rather they give it to her, but I have it for life supposedly.  But with copays, I don't know if it'll save me a lot.  I'm healthy.  I do suppose I'll break down and get a physical.  Haven't had one for decades.

I can't imagine you going through this without health insurance.  It seems one thing after another happens with diabetics.  Your immune system is compromised.  Staying healthy is like your number one job.  We started getting test strips from ebay (non-expired ones) and amazon because her insurance doesn't cover test strips at all.  They did pay for her pump and the pump supplies, so I don't complain.  It's really important to stay healthy. 

Watkins Glen is one beautiful place I've been to in my travels.  I'd hate to winter there though. 

I usually go to upstate NY once a year.  We like the finger lakes and often stay at Allegany State Park area.  Tip:  You can get in legally free at Allegany State Park if you go in before 7am.  Otherwise you pay a fee for the day.   Once in there, there are free showers, fishing, swimming, hiking trails and nice picnic areas.  If you stay late, FREE MOVIES under the stars at the Amphitheatre.  Bring blanket, flashlight and goodies from your rig.   List of movies is at the lodge in the Red House area or the rental office in the Quaker area.

There are a couple of laundermats in the park, places to buy food or supplies, 2 lakes for swimming.   Free wifi can be had at the Red House area Lodge and plug ins if you have power packs to plug in for extra power in the night.  Go to the rental station or the lodge and get a map of the place and you can see what you can do there.  LOTS.  Then for the night, a free place to stay is nearby right at the beginning of the Southern Tier NY highway west of Jamestown.  A rest area there overlooks Lake Chautauqua AND they allow FREE OVERNIGHT sleeping in your RV or car.  My daughter and I woke up in the morning with a gorgeous view of Chautauqua.   I talked to the cop-attendant there and it's totally OK to crash there for the night.   We did that almost all summer a couple years ago.   And a town near Allegany St Park, Salamanca, has a DOLLAR TREE.  LOL  We saved so much money that summer.  We paid for gas (and gas isn't taxed in Salamanca because it's an Indian reservation) and food and fuel for the camp stove and it was an awesome trip.

Yeah you are from God's country.  It's beautiful up there.  I don't know if we'll get up there this year.  If we do, it'll be later, like in early fall.   It's beautiful in summer.

wasanah2 said:

Oh man, I feel for you.  I do.  I know what my daughter goes through.  She describes it the same as you do.  Travel doesn't help. 

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's not easy. I dealt with it for a long time before deciding to file. I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. But this isn't typical pain and it gets distracting. I was an electronics engineer for 2 years and toward the end I would get distracted during critical tasks. As you can imagine, that can end up badly. Especially if you're working on something that is capable of harming someone if improperly designed and/or programmed.

I can't imagine you going through this without health insurance.  It seems one thing after another happens with diabetics.  Your immune system is compromised.  Staying healthy is like your number one job.  We started getting test strips from ebay (non-expired ones) and amazon because her insurance doesn't cover test strips at all. 

Click to expand...

For me I had insurance right up until my company laid me off. Had I seen it coming I would have stocked up on test strips and the common meds. But I didn't. So again, hopefully if disability approves me I will also have insurance.

Watkins Glen is one beautiful place I've been to in my travels.  I'd hate to winter there though.

Click to expand...

When I met my late wife and she found out I lived in Watkins Glen she was giddy! She told me how her parents you to take her there every summer as a kid to see the gorge, the lake, etc. I told her that it looks great when you're a tourist, but you don't want to live there! She didn't believe me. Since it's a tourist town it's not necessarily local-friendly. Everything is designed around tourists. There's not much work there, though they did put in a Walmart just before I left. That shut down a dozen local businesses. But it is doing good I hear.

I usually go to upstate NY once a year.  We like the finger lakes and often stay at Allegany State Park area.  Tip:  You can get in legally free at Allegany State Park if you go in before 7am.

Click to expand...

Interesting...I remember doing stuff like that when I was younger. If you got in before the ticket people were there you were safe. There were even a few movie theaters that you could go in and slip in before they started checking for tickets. I remember movie surfing.

Yeah you are from God's country.  It's beautiful up there.  I don't know if we'll get up there this year.  If we do, it'll be later, like in early fall.   It's beautiful in summer.

Click to expand...

I grew up in Watkins Glen, but I visited the Capital District area every summer and even attended high school there my junior and senior years. I spent about 10 years there and then had enough of the city and the corrupt Schenectady police department. Moved back to Watkins Glen in 1995 and eventually started my computer shop and DJ business again. In 2005 I moved to CA for the engineering tech position. 12 years later, nothing...after 12 years of being told how good I was as an employee and how valuable I was...irreplaceable. Yep.

So now I live to see the country instead of existing within it. Hopefully this change will improve my health. Having spent so many years working in front of a computer all day only to go home and either play in front of one or sit in front of a TV, this should be a healthier choice just by default. BY the way, I feel bad for your daughter. I had this happen after enjoying life when I was younger. Having it so young...the things you miss out on.

In 2005 I moved to CA for the engineering tech position. 12 years later, nothing...after 12 years of being told how good I was as an employee and how valuable I was...irreplaceable. Yep.

So now I live to see the country instead of existing within it. Hopefully this change will improve my health. Having spent so many years working in front of a computer all day only to go home and either play in front of one or sit in front of a TV, this should be a healthier choice just by default. BY the way, I feel bad for your daughter. I had this happen after enjoying life when I was younger. Having it so young...the things you miss out on.
------------

I studied mechanical engineering and ended up hating the work and then went back to school and became a math and science teacher.  Back then ( I didn't go straight into college.  I had to earn some money first) I didn't go till I was in my mid 20s.  That was in the early 80s that I started undergraduate school.   So I worked awhile after my MS and then in the 90s my husband died and I rarely was able to work after that.  I had a 2 year old, and the day care was about as much as I earned at a private school I was teaching at.   So I quit.

When she went to school I went back to work and then had to stop again when she was diagnosed with diabetes.  The reason was it was hard to control her diabetes.  If her blood sugar went over 300, they would call me from work to come and get her.  If it went under 70, they'd call me too.  I told them to give her some emergency sugar, but no, they'd feel better if I came and got her.  You can't keep a job when things are like that.  And it's hard to educate people in a small school with no school nurse.

I had such hassles with the school system not equipped to take care of a brittle diabetic (and I don't blame them) that I quit work again and lived on the sale of my house and the small pension that my late husband had earned.  The pension wasn't very much, but we always made it through.  I get that until my death too.  I don't know what we would have done without that.  She went to a small private school and I ended up going there every day with her and volunteered and helped kids with math and did playground duty while waiting.

Then we got on the road after a few years of that and lived in mainly campgrounds.  Daughter was home schooled from then until she went to college.  EVEN in college, I had to be available for her.  I had to drive her there.  I waited for her.  She was tired so I typed her notes for her from her recorder and did what I could to help her.  She's an artist.  She got a scholarship to a computer animation school, and it was one of those schools where you went in and you worked your butt off and around 1am you went home.  I was there waiting at 1am to take her home.  I wish she could have had the fun time I had in college.  It was all work for her, well both of us!

I often wonder about the serious cash I could have earned as an ME if I hadn't bailed on it and if life had dealt me and my loved ones a different deck.  When I was an ME, very few women were going into that field, and women breaking into engineering weren't as welcome then as nowadays.   Many times I thought about going back to school and getting up to speed to work an ME job again.  Then I stop dreaming!  When I was an undergrad, we still had the computer PUNCH CARDS.  We used FORTRAN!  No lie, I'm that old!  Just the sheer thought of what it would take to do it again made the idea prohibitive, bordering on ridiculous.

I have to accept it.  I'm retired.  But I worked so little to have come to this place.  I almost feel guilty or lazy for not working more.  At the university I attended, a building had this quote from Horace Mann which said, "Be ashamed to die without winning some victory for mankind."  I didn't win any victories for mankind, but in the same breath, I'm not ashamed.  When you do your best, you've done your best.  

My cousin is an EE, and he works at home.  He's got a PE certification, and he works on gov't contracts.  That would be an awesome job for a nomad too.  He works from home and sends his work electronically halfway across the US to the office.  Those types of jobs are rare.  Every engineering job I looked at involved 50-60 hour work weeks at the office.

Mr. Savage, you're still irreplaceable, but now you're a part of this community and we all get here from different circumstances, but it is always a choice.  Even people who say they are forced to live in their car can still live somewhere else.  No, this is a choice.  It's great to see new places and to not have a crazy mortgage and lawn to cut, and no moody boss.  If you're not happy with your neighbors, you leave and go on another adventure.   Who wants to live in California anyway?   Your taxes must have been unreal.   One of my firearms cases says that I can't take that particular gun into California.  I figured if my gun can't go, I won't go.  LOL

Yep, you made the right choice!

wasanah2 said:

Mr. Savage, you're still irreplaceable, but now you're a part of this community and we all get here from different circumstances, but it is always a choice. Yep, you made the right choice!

Click to expand...

Thanks! I don't regret it (this life choice)...I just wish I had thought through more about how to go about it. I did put the cart before the horse. But everything is workable right now so I'm not going to complain. 

In post #1 there was a reference to rice. For me rice of any kind sends my sugar skyrocketing. I understand that there are several types of type 2 diabetes, so maybe for some this does not happen. http://time.com/5183350/diabetes-five-types/

Rice is mostly carbs. Does the same thing to me! Which sucks, because I love rice!

I recently started taking basal insulin (Toujeo) and so far have been very pleased with my numbers.  Prior to that I was on the regular batch of pills (Metformin, Farxiga, etc.) but I was having difficulty getting my blood sugar down below 150 - even 4 hours after eating.  Now I'm seeing my blood sugar staying around 100 - 130.  Yesterday I even splurged and had a couple of doughnuts.   ;-)

I'm hoping that I'll be able to get off some of the pills - especially the Farxiga...

mpruet said:

Now I'm seeing my blood sugar staying around 100 - 130.  Yesterday I even splurged and had a couple of doughnuts.   ;-)

Click to expand...

That will show that old diabetes a thing or two.!! Does the Farxiga cause you problems?