Neuropathy

On Monday of this week I learnt a new word: "neuropathy". If I had heard it before, I certainly did not know what it meant. The alarming reality is that it was being applied to me by a physician's assistant down at our health centre.

She had my bare feet on her lap and she was testing my reactions to a simple instrument I had never seen before. It is called a monofilament. Please see the top picture.

I kept my eyes closed as she poked the filament on and around my toes, asking what I could feel. I am afraid that this is one examination that I did not pass with flying colours.

In the past fourteen months, I have been teetering around the threshold of Type 2 diabetes. That is why I stopped taking sugar in hot drinks, reduced my alcohol intake and even paid good money for continuing weight loss reduction injections.

Monday's meeting has added impetus to my efforts and the next time I see my doctor I am going to be asking about a prescription for a drug called metformin which helps to reduce blood sugar levels. All my googling makes me wonder why it was not prescribed last year.

As some of you may recall, I recently finished reading "Entangled Life" which has a strong focus upon the underground characteristics of both fungi and plant roots. At the extremities of both systems there are tiny filaments. If the plant or fungus suddenly starts to retract, it is those tiny hair-like threads that die back first.

It is the same with the human body. When able-bodied people are in the vigorous health of youth those internal filaments - our blood vessels and nerves are in prime condition - reaching effectively to every part of the body and functioning well. However, if diabetes starts to creep inside us then those tiny threads begin to retreat and well, die.

We can be like deciduous trees that shut down every autumn, dropping leaves from their extremities as arboreal energy is drawn back into the heartwood. But unlike trees, we will not see spring returning for ahead of us is just the end - sooner or later.

I can walk for miles and my feet look pink and healthy but the physician's assistant was painting a different picture. She warned me about cuts to my feet, told me not to use scissors to trim my nails, be scrupulous about washing and drying my feet and said she would be referring me to a podiatrist. It all came as a shock - I can tell you, especially as the appointment was allegedly for an "annual  hypertension review" which is what I wrote on our kitchen calendar.

Hell, I do not want to end up with amputated toes or sores that will not heal but that could so easily be the way of things. Those who crept into the diabetes nether zone before me never imagined that such things might happen to them.

Throughout my life I have been blessed with good health. My body was just a purring vehicle that carried the inner me through life - into adventures, pubs, love, foreign lands, jobs, libraries, dining rooms, oceans. I guess I took it for granted that it would always function like that until it simply conked out but that might not be the way of things and tonight I feel quite fearful.