All That And A Bag Of Chips

Yeah girlfriend
these last few months
have been a trip and a half
with me having to fight off
half a dozen complications
of the Diabetes
with multiple trips to the
various doctors
who now populate my life
like some
Greek chorus
in the Orestes trilogy
along with the prescribed
injections of insulin and
with me popping
half a dozen of additional
prescribed meds
as if they were
M&Ms
for various aches and pains
trying to keep my blood sugar
cholesterol
and blood pressure
on the down low
(not complainin’
I’m just sayin’)

Then throw in
a recent bout
with the Shingles
add some
unholy weight gain
and toss in
a couch potato lifestyle
with
almost a total lack of
real physical activity
and well
you get the picture
(and admittedly
it ain’t pretty)

I just checked my
blood sugar level
with my Accu Check
and it reads 310
on the Richter scale
(and that’s too high
(only one hour after lunch)

So I just gave myself
another 60 units of
Novolog
(I use the new flex pen
so this is a fairly
easy task to do)

I was always grateful
to the inventor of
artificial insulin
(Romanian born
Nicolae Paulescu
rabid anti-Semite that
he may very well have been)
even before
I developed
Type 2 Diabetes
and I am doubly grateful
to him today
(as well as to
Frederick Banting and
John Macleod
who were named
co-winners of the
1923 Nobel Prize
while Paulescu’s
contributions
were denied
though he was
equally deserving)

Chalk it all up
to the inevitable
consequences of
growing older
in the sure and
certain knowledge
that we are not alone
in our sufferings and travails
(thank you
Medicaid and Medicare!
and where would we
seniors and poor folk
be without them?)

All of this preamble
is  just a prelude
to the final point
that I have been
trying to make
namely this

I have been trying
to give myself
a rare pat
on the back for
having persevered
and for having survived
all of my previously mentioned
multitudinous calamities
(yes a number of them
self-inflicted but
a fair number of them
quite beyond my control)
despite my usual
dyspeptic view of the world
(and that is saying something!)

Recently
my old familiar
wristwatch
expired and so
today I purchased
a brand new watch at
The Happy Jeweler
in the suburban train station

I am calling it
my graduation present
to myself!

L’chaim!

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2012