Just for the hell of it, I called into the Med Centre on the way to work this morning. Today's excuse being that AM wanted some stuff collecting and I thought I may as well get my usual repeat ahead of the trip to the UK for (Ugh!) Christmas. No problem you'd think, except that it looked suspiciously like they were waiting for me...

Medical type person: "Ah, I'm glad you called in, I need to speak to you"

Me: "Have the results have come back then?"

MTP: "Yes, and we're not happy about this figure here"

He points at a circled figure two hours into my OGTT

MTP: "Normally at this point we'd expect to see your blood sugar levels coming down rather further than they have"

He calls the Doctor over who's sat at the back of the office shuffling paper

Doctor: "Well we've looked at this and there's no doubt that this confirms the diagnosis of diabetes, so you won't need to do an OGTT again"

I think they call that last bit a crumb of comfort. Bugger! Not what I had in mind, it seems that the body is disintegrating still further. The almost religious attempt at starvation last week before the test didn't help much then.

Doc: "Do you consume a lot of soft drinks and sugary foodstuff?"

Me: "No. I've known for a while that 'full fat' softies make me feel odd"

Doc: "Well it's not like you're overweight or have any of the other high risk contributing factors [he means I don't smoke], so given these readings, I'm not going to wait another three months to assess whether your blood sugar levels can be bought under control just by changing your diet. I'll start you on the tablets straight away."

Oh good, more fucking tablets!

Doc: "MTP, would you get a couple of packs of unpronouncible patented diabetes remedy? Now, I'd like you to start these with your largest meal of the day. They can have some side effects when you start them, nausia, light headedness, that sort of thing..."

Sounds just perfect, the very thing almost

Doc: "So start with one a day for a few days, then gradually build up to three a day. They help promote the production of insulin. As we get older, we all start to lose the ability to control our own sugar levels"

Thanks for the reminder. MTP returns with two large boxes.

Me: "Can I get my repeat too?"

Doc: "What do you have?"

I reel off the usual array

Doc: Ah well, we don't really like giving that one to people over 40 unless they've had this medical procedure done.

He mentions something involving a camera...

Doc: "I'll get a referral made up. There are much better things to take than those ones anyway"

That will be more tablets then will it? I suspect it might.

10 minutes later, I'm out of there, with a letter, a copy of my OGTT result and a bag containing five different types of drug counted out in hundreds. What a way to start the week! It's a good job nothing is going wrong any further down, they'd have me on the little blue pills in a heartbeat.

As you'd expect, AM is not happy about all of this. It seems that every time she flies out of the Magic Kingdom (like she will this evening), I end up finding out something 'interesting' about myself, like this. It would be fair to say, that I don't choose the timing, but I know what she means.

'Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it', or at least that's the way the song goes. I wonder when the next health turd is going to get lobbed in my general direction? Funny thing is, I don't remember standing near any fans...

Of necessity, this post needs to be short, as despite the lateness of the hour, I need to go and exercise - a circuit of compound walking should do.

About 10 days ago, I went off for my annual company medical - 'they' feel it's important, and I wouldn't want to disagree with 'them'. Inevitably, the blood tests showed that all was not as rosy in the garden as I would have liked to believe, but they would send it off to the lab and get a 2nd opinion. I suppose it was only fair to get the full treatment as I had 'paid' for it with a needle in either arm.

A couple of days ago I was invited in for 'a chat'. This morning I headed in there to see what was occurring. It would seem that they have confirmed that my blood sugar levels are somewhat out of kilter and rather up on where they should be. I had a similar conversation about 3 years back and a oral glucose tolerance test confirmed that I was in the pre-diabetic range. A series of dietary changes later and on subsequent medicals it would seem that all was under control. Not so this time though.

This time it turns out that my readings are above where 'they' want them and I'm due another OGTT to confirm the doctor's expectation that this will now confirm that I have moved on a stage and will be considered a diabetic. This is not the greatest news I could have had today, or any other day for that matter. This is very early stage stuff and I should not expect to notice any symptoms yet, nor do I need to start on tablets of any form - just more dietary care and some exercise (see above).

With that, I'll go and put my training shoes on and head off out - delightful stuff...