All great changes are preceded by chaos

“Oh, you have diabetes”, said the doctor as she entered the room. Let’s back up a bit and see how I ended up here, how things unfolded over the next few days, and what impact it had on me.

This was back in 2012, 1st week of February. I had just moved to California from Texas to work at eBay about 2 weeks ago. My office was in San Jose and I was living in a studio rented out by an Indian family in their home in Santa Clara. One night, just before going to sleep, I noticed a black spider near my bed. After a few futile attempts to kill it, I gave up and went to sleep, hoping I had scared the spider enough.

Day 1: Next morning I woke up and had a small insect bite mark just under my lower lip. Now, this happened in the middle of the night and I had no way of confirming, but I was pretty sure it was that nasty spider. There was slight pain and discomfort, but I couldn’t really do much. So I ignored it and proceeded with the rest of my day. As the day went on, the irritation, pain and swelling started going up. By evening, the area between my lips and chin was pretty stiff. I had some off the shelf anti-allergic medicine. So I took that and went to sleep.

Day 2: The swelling increased many folds over the course of the night. There was more swelling on the inside of my mouth than outside. It was high time and some action had to be taken. I looked up a doctor who was available the same day. I went there in a couple of hours. A nurse completed all the formalities(taking weight, blood pressure, temperature), and moved me to a room where I was anxiously waiting to see the doctor. About 10 minutes later, the doctor entered the room and the first words that she blurted were “Oh, you have diabetes”. I was shocked, depressed, confused and had no idea what was going on. The doctor, standing maybe 20 ft away from me, without asking me a single question had declared I had diabetes. That was a fun start to the conversation. We had a lengthy chat where I told the doctor again and again it is an insect bite and possibly spider, and she repeatedly told me this was due to diabetes. She referred me for a complete blood test to a testing lab, gave me some antibiotics to bring the swelling down, and come back to see her after I had the blood test results.

I stepped out of the clinic, my heart was racing fast, tears rolling down and I didn’t know what to do. So I called my parents in India in the middle of the night. I told them what the doctor had told me about diabetes. My dad, who knows way more than a lot of qualified doctors, all as a result of his interest and studying books by himself, tried to calm me down. Since he knew about the insect bite already, he told me not to worry about what the doctor said but still get the blood test done as it will anyways be good to confirm. The rest of that day was such a blur for me. I remember going to some lab somewhere, giving my blood samples and they told me results will take 2-3 days. I don’t remember much else from that day.

Day 3: The antibiotics I took the previous day didn’t work. The swelling had increased so much that the skin inside my mouth had cut through due to the pressure it was putting on my teeth. As soon as I got up, pus started flowing out of these holes and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I spent a good part of the next hour just squeezing as much pus as I could from these huge holes inside my mouth. They were so big that I was able to insert an earbud to clean them. Once this immediate flow slowed down, I drove to an urgent care clinic in Mountain View. Went through the same standard procedure of checking vitals and then waiting in a room to see a doctor. A few minutes later, a doctor walked in, asked me a bunch of questions, looked at my condition, and decided I needed high dose injections of antibiotics to get control of this. When he was leaving the room, I asked him if he thought this is because of diabetes. He was surprised and said unless I know I have diabetes there is no reason for me to think. So I told him about the experience from the previous day, what the doctor said, and that I don’t have my blood test results yet to confirm. He said they can check my blood sugar right away. They did that for me and it was completely normal.

I had to go visit urgent care the next day as well for another dose of antibiotic injections and they gave me a prescription for antibiotic tablets for the next few days. The infection had already started healing up and with proper medication, everything was back to normal in a few days. The other doctor’s clinic called me one of these days to tell me my blood test results and they look fine and now the doctor would like to see me and treat me for the infection. I politely(or maybe not) refused to see that doctor.

Why did I decide to tell this story? All that happened so far was a spider bit me, one doctor did a wrong analysis, I went to urgent care and the infection healed in a few days. The reason I decided to tell this story is for the impact that doctor with the wrong analysis had on me. I couldn’t come to terms that I looked so unhealthy, that a doctor would just look at me and be pretty sure I had diabetes. I was huge, weighing over 300 pounds at that time. I knew I was overweight but never felt that I looked like a walking sack of chronic diseases, that anyone who looked at me would just assume I am suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes and can get a heart attack at any moment.

I was overweight all my life growing up. A major part of my childhood was plagued by Bronchitis, which would get inflamed with changes in weather, dust, pollution. For a major part of my childhood, I was on strong medications and would not be allowed to eat a lot of junk food that other kids could eat. This also changed my relationship with food. When I started managing Bronchitis better, I would get tempted by all sorts of junk foods that I couldn’t eat all these years. A body weakened by antibiotics and an unhealthy relationship with food meant I just kept gaining weight. One thing that amuses me is I knew I was overweight, but I never thought that is something I can start controlling and stop adding more. So I never cared for it, and just kept gaining weight for years.

This doctor, her unabashed honesty of what she thought of me was eye-opening. I didn’t change anything overnight, but I just couldn’t kill this voice inside me which kept on telling me I look like a ticking time bomb. After a few months, I finally got serious about my health. I was happy that I didn’t have any of these conditions but I also knew if I continued with my lifestyle, that day isn’t far when I’ll have these. I took concrete steps after my birthday in August of that year and haven’t looked back.

I have lost well over 100 pounds and the thought of ending how I was these years ago always haunts me. I still don’t have a perfect relationship with food, I love food and it’s a constant struggle. Things have improved a lot over the years, and I am always learning new things every day. What I strive for is finding that sweet spot of balance in life. I have so many experiences, thoughts, and feelings about nutrition, health, and fitness. I’ll definitely be writing more about these.

For anyone reading this, take care of your body, it’s the only place you have to live in.

PS: I hope some DNA from that spider is still mutating inside, and one day it will turn me into spiderman.