Glad to still be alive, despite my health issues

Apologies for the non-artwork post, but my health (or lack thereof) has been on my mind with all the reports of greatly increased COVID-19 death risk for people with underlying health conditions. I’ve been following my county health department’s daily report of new diagnosed coronavirus cases and deaths. Day after day most of those dying are noted to have underlying health conditions (yesterday all 3 deaths were so noted). I unfortunately check all the main risk boxes: age over 60, obesity, diabetes, compromised immune system, high blood pressure (and likely other cardiovascular issues due to diabetes), and asthma.

ADA (American Diabetes Association) posts and links often come up in my Facebook newsfeed. Yesterday I followed one to find some interesting stats. The “~12 years shorter lifespan” was sobering.

On the positive side… I am glad to be doing better than average in re. my lifespan with type 2 diabetes. Because if I estimate my probable lifespan by averaging that of generations 1 and 2 of my pedigree (so to speak, lol), and subtract 12 years, I am already dead for well over a decade. Seriously though, I hope many others are newly motivated to take better care of their health. When I was first diagnosed, nearly 20 years ago I think, it scared me so much I lost over 80 lbs. and reduced my A1C enough to get off most my med’s. Alas while controlling A1C is very simple it is not easy. Lots of back sliding since then.

But now sheltering-in-place has kickstarted another effort to improve my food and lifestyle choices. I’ve lost 7.5 lbs. in the last several weeks of self-isolating and sheltering-in-place and actually look forward to my next bloodwork check. Have been more active outside working on the vegetable garden. And yesterday I rode my bike to Walgreens rather than driving to pick up a prescription, where I was happy to able to use the drive-through window instead of having to go inside. So while I can’t do a damn thing about my age, or asthma, I can make improvements in my other conditions.