 Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Death by Donuts Donuts come with a price tag, and the price is too high for a diabetic. I know this to be true and yet, recently, on my way home from the hospital (where I just had my gallbladder removed in a not-so-minor surgery), I found myself resolutely stage whispering to my kind friend and driver that day, Nancy: "Pull over here, now please." She complied, and in so doing, allowed me to be non-compliant with my discharge orders. It's not my fault that Johnny Donuts was right there, beckoning me. Needless to say, it was not my first time to the preeminent donut rodeo that is Johnny Donuts. Not Johnny Carson. Not Johnny Cash, but Johnny Donuts. Donuts, I figure, must be the owner's last name, making him Mr. Donuts. if you haven't had Mr. Donut's donuts, you haven't lived. I sure have—on this day it was salted butter caramel goodness smothered in grease—directly down the hatch. Four bites in under a minute of bliss. I washed it down with a sweet latte, another no-no. Two wrongs somehow made it right. Sugar is my jam. It tempts me in all forms: brownies, chocolate chip cookies, carrot cake (widely considered the best in Marin County) from the Rustic Bakery. I haven’t tried every offering at the Rustic, but I intent to; it's crucial for elders to have a sense of purpose, something to look forward to. After my first piece of Rustic's carrot cake, I was inspired. I wanted to make my own version by peeling a carrot and spreading Betty Crocker icing all over it, no skimping. But oops! I remembered that I have type 2 diabetes. Sugar is not my friend. Eating a donut or a carrot with icing could very well be deadly for me. I threw it that iced carrot away but came very close to rolling the dice. Begs the question: Why do I continue to self-sabotage? What's with my urge to hasten my self-destruction? While I was checking out (and I do mean checking out) with my Johnny’s donut and latte that day, a server recognized me and gave me a free donut, straight from the oven, warm and dripping with butter. It pays to be a regular. I never refuse a gift—that would be rude! I hate hurting anyone's feelings. In that instant, I placed the servers feelings ahead of my own life. There I was, contemplating my gifted donut, sipping my latte. Nance suggested we split it—she's afraid of gaining a pound. She makes good choices. I thought this was a splendid notion as it would then only be half as deadly! I would only lose half as many minutes off my life! My blood sugar wouldn't surge above 250! All good things. She's not a fast eater, so I ate most of the donut in addition to a donut hole chaser. Who doesn't love a donut hole chaser? It would have been profligate to waste it. I washed it down with my latte with sweetener. Gulp. Gulp. Gulp. It wasn’t the going down that bothered me. It was sitting without my gallbladder, the little engine that breaks down fats in food, that bothered me. I wondered what the surgeon did with it; they never asked if I wanted it as a keepsake. As the donut sat there swirling in latte, undoubtedly close to where my gallbladder used to reside, I felt (and everyone heard frankly) an explosion in my tummy, followed in rote succession by a severe reflux tummy ache. The nausea was the worst I’ve experienced in my 78 years. It lasted all day and through the night. My obsessive mind determined that it would never go away. I was convinced I would remain in Johnny's Donuts purgatory for the rest of my lifetime. When the nausea subsided the next day, I was reborn. I swore off Johnny's Donuts, and lattes for that matter, FOR LIFE (which hopefully won't be a long time). In my new After-Johnny's era, however, I was immediately baffled, not knowing what to eat next. Without donuts or lattes on the menu, I had to pivot to pita chips from Insalata's. Sure, this was another bad choice, but I had to get a gift card for someone and while I was there, I was overtaken with not wanting to disappoint the well-meaning purveyors behind the take-out counter. I survived that episode unscathed but again found new determination. You see my pattern now, yes? It works, while not working, for me. I finished the day with a big bang: three ounces of salmon, four pieces of broccoli and exactly two spoonfuls of mashed potatoes. Lo and behold, eating appropriately does not make me feel nauseous. I still crave Johnny's Donuts with maple goo on top, but I’ve learned my lesson. S’mores are different though, wouldn't you agree?
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Photo by Caleb George on Unsplash  In 1994, I was an apartment gal in Southern California. More valley than Hollywood, but close enough to smell and live the ethos of striving and progress. That was the year the Northridge 6.7 magnitude earthquake, an act of God (as I like to call her), catapulted me from a two-bedroom apartment to a townhouse. At that point, I could not fathom the notion that one day I would live in an actual home because, you see, I was nothing if not a dyed-in-the-wool apartment gal. Apartment gals are known for taking baby steps. We don't rush, headlong, into change. In my case, I could only tolerate tiny, toddler, tottering half-steps. I was conditioned, courtesy of Mother, to regard full steps as indulgent. Coincidentally, SoCal apartment gals are known for taking small bites (whilst taking small steps) and locking themselves up for fear of being too fat. (But that's another post/story/chapter -- there's more where that came from.) My progression—from first apartment to first home—was glacial. This hewed to my identity as an apartment gal: we scare easily. I vegetated in my first apartment, like a piece of celery or, on a good day perhaps a baby carrot ... not yet graduating to full carrot (and never, never crudité with ranch dressing). Apartment gals do not take a bite our of life. They nibble. In hindsight, I have no idea how I nibbled my way out. I went from a cavernous, dank, drug-infested, one-bedroom “flat,” to a a brand new, cheerful one bedroom with unfortunate neighbors whose proclivity was to blast loud music at three a.m. On the regular. It's not like they were with the band. They were just rude. This ancillary, but unavoidable, downside led me to the aforementioned, two-bedroom apartment. It was a big step, but a safe one, for this apartment gal. Or so I thought. Until Mother Nature moved earth under my feet and I was careened into a townhouse for a spell. Suburban-urban elan. That half-step gave me momentum. When I woke up one day in a home with cathedral ceilings and marble floors, I was as surprised as Mother. The next (bigger, unsanctioned) step landed me in a 2300 square-foot house (fortress, really) on the ocean. The apartment gal had officially broken the mold. The problem was that I still had apartment-gal mentality. The environment was bigger but my thinking was not. I heard my mother shouting in my head: Think small. Live small. Be tiny. Not surprisingly, from there it was off to an SLE, which, to the uninitiated, is a sober living environment … . And that's where my real journey begins. |
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