Oatmeal That Tastes Like Peanut Butter Cookies...

I love oatmeal.  In fact, it's just about the only cereal I will eat in the mornings, period.  I also love peanut butter (but not as much as my Greg does, trust me).  As I was making my morning oatmeal the other day, I was trying to figure out how to get some protein in my breakfast without adding more carbs, when it hit me--peanut butter has carbs.  Why not add it to the oatmeal?  Yeah!

The final product was yummy--as Greg and I have proclaimed it, "a peanut butter cookie in a bowl."  Here's the concoction for each serving:

• 1 serving hot, cooked old-fashioned oats (don't use instant--ugh!)

• 2 tbsp peanut butter (we used chunky)

• sweetener of choice to equal 2 tsp of sugar (I used a mix of stevia and splenda, as they are natural sweeteners, but don't mess with a diabetic's blood sugar)

Just add the peanut butter and sweetener to the hot oatmeal and stir well.   It has about 350 calories, 20 grams of fat (GOOD fat), and 35 carbs.  Sounds like a lot, but you get waaaay more than that in a fast food breakfast, right? right.

Tuesday Morning...

Another quiet summer morning here at home for me as I wait for Greg to come home from his mom and dad's.  Poor Nadine is steadily growing worse, both physically and mentally.  We are going to the neurologist in Murfreesboro this afternoon to get a report, and hopefully some news on a course of treatment.  Tomorrow we meet with the oncology group.

I'll report when I know something.

Updates on a Wednesday...and a rant about doctors and diabetes!!

I'm home from the doctor in Murfreesboro; Mama and I both had an appointment about our eyesight.  Mama had great news--her eyesight had miniscule changes and she doesn't have to come back for a year--yay! 

My news wasn't great, but wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  There was a problem, but Dr. Cherney felt that since my diabetes was getting under control so quickly that the problem might correct itself without any laser surgery.  I was so thrilled!  The idea of somone taking a laser to my eyeballs was not exactly tickling me pink.

When I think of how long I probably went with my Type 1 diabetes undiagnosed, it angers me so much....I know it went on at least two years because when my gallbladder was taken out my blood sugar was over 600 then.  What did I hear from the surgeon and my then-primary doctor?  "You need to eat better and take better care of yourself, and your sugar will go down."  I WAS eating fine, thank you very much, but the fact is when almost anyone in health care sees a person who is heavy they (like most people in society) assume that heavy person eats constantly and eats the wrong foods.  WRONG.  I guarantee you there are people 1/3 my size that eat 3x more than I do all over this planet.  But do you think those doctors listened to me?  Nope.

Finally, along came Dr. Bryan Chastain, God Bless Him.  He was the man who saved my life, and believed me when no one else would listen.  I went to him because he was Greg's doctor, and he spent time talking to me, asking me questions, and checking out my health to see what was really going on with me.  When he couldn't get my blood sugar under control, he sent me to someone who COULD.  That was the Eskind Diabetes Clinic at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.  Within two months, my Hemoglobin A1C went from 10.8 (dangerously high) to 8.5 (1.5 point from high normal).  The clinic has helped me feel so much better about myself, and feel so much better pysically.  When I think of how long I have felt so tired, so sick, so depressed BECAUSE I was so tired and sick, I want to scream at those other doctors for robbing me of all that time of my life I missed out on.  I feel so sad for my last two years of students for not being "all of me" the last two years of my teaching.  Look out next year's 10th grade--woo hoo!  Now all I have to do is go get some new glasses, and I'll be all set!

Another update...our sweet Nadine is still in limbo.  No news, except that there are two scheduled dr. appointments next week regarding the tumor in her head.  Her mental state drifts in and out--she is lucid one day, a bit lost the next, hallucinating the next.  Her gait is more staggering day by day, and her legs are very weak, as are her arms.  She is having a very hard time sleeping at night, and sleeps fitfully off and on during the day.  We are all trying to be brave and positive, anxiously awaiting the doctor visits and dreading them at the same time.  It's going to be a million years until Tuesday, and yet it will be here too soon.

Please keep Nadine in your prayers...