I have 2 aunts and 1 Tia (which is another term for "aunt" in spanish). My Tia is obviously my favorite aunt, that's why she's my Tia and the others are just regular ole aunts. The past 20 years, maybe more, she has been a diabetic. She was a big woman, until her diabetes began affecting her and she started to lose weight. At first, she would just get sick and have to stay in the hospital a few days. Then, the doctor told her she had to go 3 days a week to a clinic for Dialysis. She did so well, that they gave her a machine so she could do it at home instead of having to travel 45 minutes every week, 3x a week.
Then one day, she got a sore on her stomach and I've heard it got as big as a baseball and you could see pretty far through it. With the help of a nurse who went to her home quite often to clean it, it healed up. By then though, her toes started turning black...yes, she got gangrene. She had no circulation running through her legs and feet. As time went on, little by little, the doctor had to trim at her toes. At first, it was just her left foot that was pretty bad, but then her toes in her right foot had to be cut off.
About 3 weeks ago, she had surgery to have half her left foot removed. She's been in pain since and she has to use wheelchair now of course. She and my uncle are in their early 60s, he works a monday-friday job and has had such difficulty getting her on/off the bed and in/out of their car when they have to go see one of her doctors. My aunt is so weak, that her weight makes it seem like it's such a bigger amount for my uncle who is a short/average skinny guy.
For a while now, he's been confident that she'd get better, but that first trip and all the trouble he had getting her in the car and also seeing how bad her feet REALLY are...it all just hit him and he brokedown in front of my cousin (their son) and cried and realized that this is real, she is Not going to get better. Right now, she's at the hospital and has been there for a few days, they have given her morphine because her other pain med was not helping even a little.
Everything I posted above, I constantly think about and I'm so scared that I will end up in that situation. I'm not strong like my aunt, I would just want to keel over from being in so much pain. What she has gone through, is going through, and will continue to go through is what keeps me motivated to have a healthy lifestyle and not continue on the destructive path I'm on.
If you read, thank you; I appreciate it. No one has to reply, I just REALLY needed to get that all out.