Kevins Crazy World
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Hey Everyone, I know this may seem like a blast from the past, but yes, I am still alive out there , I’m not dead yet even though it’s been rough. So much has happened, I’ll just say it all as it comes to me in this messed up head of mine. I’m 19 now, in college (JMU), and its 4:50AM right this minute. Typical college kid, eh? I still get headaches and stomach aches all the time and I don’t know why. I’m not dating Joey anymore and I’ve gained some perspective since then (thank God). I don’t wear contacts or glasses anymore, I had laser eye surgery done this past summer and now I’m seeing 20/10 without any help. I haven’t played soccer in forever, but I did start the first ever Covenant Indoor Track Team, but we did horribly in our inaugural year. My sis is doing better with celiac and is healthier now. My mom and dad are okay, my mom found a passion in running and I got my dad interested in this online gaming site called Conquer club (www.conquerclub.com) and he’s been playing that a lot. I have a new favorite TV show, Heroes, which is so totally cool; I look forward to watching it every Monday. I’m heading up game nights here at JMU at this local recreation center, and that seems to be going well. I’m also participating in pool tournaments and Smash Bros. Melee tournaments. I can’t wait for Brawl to come out!!! I’m interested in this diabetic girl now, her name is Erin. I’m hoping it will work out, but I’m not going to disclose too much info… I learn from my mistakes. My parents are currently on a business trip up north and they did this “Step up for Diabetes” walk where they both raised $1000 to donate to Diabetic research. I can’t guarantee that I’ll be writing a lot more now… it was Erin that convinced me to write again after so long, I’ve just been stressed lately with everything and I guess this serves as an outlet. I don’t expect to get many responses to this but then again, I don’t really care. I’d be happy if this “journal” actually helps people, but since it’s been obsolete for the past 2 or so years, I don’t know what good is doing anymore. I don’t really know what else to say right at this moment that is imperative, so I’ll maybe, MAYBE write again soon if the mood strikes me. Until then, this is Sgt. Buckethead signing off. (It’s 5AM and my meds are wearing off… cut me some slack.) J
~Kevin~
Labels: October 2007
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Your welcome Kevin. I am so happy to read your words - mainly because when I created your website - I did it to give you a form of therapy. I felt you had so much on you at such a young age and it can make a person bitter and have much anger built up inside - I did not want this to happy to you! Therefore, I felt if you could talk about it and share this with others - you would not only help yourself but help other kids your age struck with this terrible disease. I LOVE YOU ! Keep up the good work!
7/10/05
Hey Everyone! It's been a long time been a long time been a lonely lonely lonely lonely time... sorry, I've got songs on my mind 'cause I just bought a new dell digital jukebox with my hard earned MOOLAH! It only cost $238, not that bad considering that I can listen to my favorite music whenever I want. Well, a lot of stuff has happened since I last wrote. I guess I should start by answering the biggest problem in my last letter, I finally found out what was making me sick the whole time. My regular doctor now thinks that I had a cold and a stomach virus (at the same time) at one point, who knows how long ago, (probably within the 6 months that I was sick), and those 2 things combined made my body lactose intolerant. It was around this time that the stomach doctors were trying to figure out why I was sick, and their main two hypotheses were Celiac, and lactose intolerance, and they put me on the lactaid right away (even though my mom had already guessed that and started me on it about a week and a half before seeing the stomach doctor) and after about a week or so of no progress on the lactaid they had an endoscopy done. As you probably already know, the endoscopy results came back negative. This really puzzled the stomach doctors and then they told me that maybe I wasn't eating healthy enough. Around the time that I was taking the lactaid, I started taking an antibiotic for my acne because it was getting out of control again. I didn't know it at the time, but even if the lactaid had been helping me up to that point, any progress that it had made on healing my body would have been undone by the effects of the antibiotics, which is why I stayed sick for so long. When I finally went off the antibiotics (when we started to catch on that the antibiotic may be making me sick even though I was sick before even taking it) my body went back to normal in a few days. My regular doctor explained that by this time my body had probably completely healed from the cold and stomach viruses, and the lactose intolerance, so once the antibiotic was out of my system, my body could heal itself once again. I'm glad all of that is over and done with! Even though my problems seem to be back to just my vision, allergies, adhd and diabetes for the moment, my sister is still having trouble with celiac, my mom is still suffering from "Mal de Debarquement" which has been making her dizzy NONSTOP, and my dad is still suffering from knee problems. ~sigh~ We seem to just be lucky like that don't we. If anyone has any advice for me and my family it would be greatly appreciated. I am very grateful for all the love and support I have received from friends, loved ones, and even complete strangers since I started this website, and I could not have done any of it without my Aunt Linda. Linda, thank you for giving me this website. It has been hard for me to deal with all these problems in my life that normal people don't even think twice about, most hardly even know what any of these things are, but this website has enabled me to tell the world what I'm going through. I feel like this has been my opportunity to tell the world how much these diseases and sicknesses that I see everyday really suck and they need to be cured so that my family and I, not to mention everyone in the world who can be my witnesses to how much we really need this, can finally get on with our lives without having to deal with all of this crap. No one should have to deal with any of this.
On a different note, my school year is over and it is now the summer. I failed miserably to achieve the goals that I had set for myself with my grades this year and I have no one to blame but myself. Instead of getting highest honors (like my girlfriend, Joey), I only got honors instead of the high honors I was at least expecting since that is what I used to get. As Joey tells me, I should've studied, and it was stupid of me to be so arrogant to believe that I could do well without studying. I felt like I deserved the time for myself and that I shouldn't waste it studying when I could be living. I should've realized (and now I know better) that in order to actually live the life that I want when I grow up I need to study now so that I can get the career that I desire and make my wife happy. My disappointment with myself consumed my mind to the point that I was forced to make a tough decision and now there is no going back. I have come to the conclusion that I should not play varsity soccer next year because it would be way too stressful for me. Last year I missed classes and had to make up work, I had practices every day of the week when I didn't have games, and sometimes I had games on the weekends. I had barely enough time to finish my homework let alone have time for myself. If I had attempted to play it this year, not only would it have been harder to do better in school if I missed more classes, but I would also have no free time since I now have a job mowing for my grandfather. Most importantly I would have no time to see the love of my life, Joey, and that would just kill me. So by not playing soccer, hopefully I'll be able to mow, do school work, spend time with Joey, and still have some breathing room. Another benefit that I have by not playing soccer is that now I have the opportunity to explore the possibilities associated with my passion, sprinting. I think that my love for sprinting is the main reason that soccer appealed to me so much. As the years went by I started to fall behind my peers in ability but I was still able to run faster than any of them. I didn't care as much about training on my own like they did, it just didn't interest me, but I did love running really fast to get the ball away from the other team at the last second. After years of not having a track team at Covenant (my school), and now that I have given up soccer, I have found a local track organization that is open to the public, so I am going to enter the 100 meter, the 200 meter, and maybe even the 400 meter, but there is no way I'm entering the 5k!! I hate cross country, I'll stick to short distance running because I like to stick to what I'm good at.
I already mentioned that I've been really happy with Joey, because she is the best thing that has ever happened in my life. The only bad thing is that I don't get to see her as much as I would like. She just got back from 2 weeks at a camp last night and it was utter torture for me. She couldn't call me, e-mail me, only send letters and it took forever for me to get them. I missed her so much that I couldn't take it any longer and I went with her dad to see her before the 2 weeks were over. We drove 4 hours and only saw her for 5 minutes but it was worth it, just seeing that big smile on her face when she saw me, it's the best feeling in the world. Another cool thing is that my cousin Gibs here to visit from South Africa. He's not here right now though, he's coming back in 2 days but he's traveling with his family to Boston. He's my best friend and he's like a brother to me. It's a shame that I don't get to see him more than 1-2 months out of the year. I feel sorry for him because due to his dad's job, he has to move from South Africa to Senegal when he goes back to Africa. I would absolutely hate being uprooted every couple of years and leave the friends that I have grown to know and love.
In a nutshell, my life is going pretty great right now. I just finished the 2 golden sun games completely (for the first time), and when I say completely I mean getting every possible weapon, armor and any other thing that you can collect in the game. I just wish that they would make a golden sun 3. ~sigh~ I also just finished the 10th book in the Series of Unfortunate Events series last night and it was good. I really love my new digital jukebox! I can't believe that I had enough money to buy my own!! It's really cool being able to do that. It was my jukebox that helped me get through those 2 weeks without Joey, and I know that it may not seem like that big a deal or that I'm over exaggerating but trust me, I've never felt so strongly about anything in my life. There is nothing in the world more important to me than her, and I thank God every day I live for answering my prayers and sending me an angel that I can love forever. Well that seems like enough I don't wanna gross out anyone. I just like her, a lot, so TOO BAD!! I'll write back when I have more to talk about, until then, keep me in your thoughts and prayers!
~Kevin~
Friday, April 08, 2005
Hey guys,
A lot has happened since the last time that I wrote. A LOT!! I don't even know where to start.... but I will pick something anyways. I ended up getting that endoscopy done and man was it harsh. They had to drug me so that I couldn't feel this HUGE tube being shoved down my throat, and then it went down my esophogus, through my stomach and into my small intestines where they extracted 6 samples of me to run biopsies on to determine whether or not I have celiac disease. The good news is I DON'T HAVE IT!!! I'M REALLY HAPPY!!!! Although the bad news.... I still don't know what's causing me to be sick all the time. After that the bad news just kept piling on top of eachother. My sister was retested for celiac to see if she still had glutens in her system and they found out that she is somehow still getting glutens!!! That is REALLY not good!!! She has been putting up with this disease better than I would've ever imagined and she has been trying her hardest to stick to her diet of no glutens and somehow she still is getting them. We were baffled by this for a while until we found out how she was still getting glutens. It seems as though some foods that are store brands such as kroger or foodlion don't always necessarily include every single ingredient on their list of ingredients. This is because they were probably trying to save themselves time and effort, but it's bad if some of the ingredients that they leave off contain glutens. So now my sister is trying to only eat foods from brands that she knows is gluten free. Until then she still feels horrible day in and day out. I've been feeling worse myself, despite the fact that I was relieved when my test results came back negative, I'm still feeling sick with headaches and stomach aches almost every single day. I think that I've figured out the cause of my headaches though which is good. My mom mentioned to me that it seems as though I'm alergic to school since I only get headaches on the days that I go to school. I thought about that for a couple seconds and something came to me... I drink almost 20 glasses of water or more every day when I'm at home, but when I'm at school I'm lucky if I drink 1 or 2. So now I've started to fill a bottle with water half way every night and leave it in the freezer to have it iced in the morning, and then when I go to school I have ice water for half of the day. That way I can get at least more water than I used to have at school, and my headaches seem to be going away, so I guess I was dehydrated this whole time. Now if I could only find out what's wrong with my stomach then I'd be perfect.... yeah I wish. If all this weren't enough my CRT lenses have been failing me these past couple months, at first I just thought that it was blurred for one or two days... no big deal, but then my eyes started to be consistantly poor many days in a row. I've tried many different ways to fix this problem and they've all failed... which is unfortunate since I like having the good vision that comes with the CRT when it's on a good day. Now I'm faced with one of 2 choices: regular contacts which give me headaches and irritate my eyes, or glasses which are uncomfortable and make me look like a nerd. I'm leaning towards contacts just because I don't want to deal with glasses and I'm hoping that if I get a new brand of contacts then these problems would be fixed. I know this is all I lot to soak in all at once but just think how hard it would be to be me!
I'm really hoping and praying that all these problems in my life just go away... because it's a really heavy burden to deal with all this crap on top of diabetes, school work and the other responsabillities of being a teenager with ADHD.
On a happier note I'm now 17... yay! Also, I've been going out with my amazing girlfriend for almost 4 months now!!! That is like soooooooooo cool!! I've never had someone like her in my life before... and all I can say is I'm blessed to have her.... even if I have all these other problems to deal with in my life, she completely balances them out because when I'm with her I don't have a care in the world.... she makes me sooooooo happy. She actually cares about how I feel and she is compasionate to all of my sicknesses and all that I'm going through (which you have no idea unless you understand what I'm going through how much of a relief it is to have someone that you can just forget about those problems when you are with them). I've never met anyone like her and I probably never will... I love her more than anything and I hope I never lose this happiness I have when I'm with her. Even with all that I have going bad in my life, I'm lucky to be alive just so I can see her smile every day.
So thank you for listening to my problems and everything else that's happeneing in my life. If you have any questions, comments, or ideas about anything mentioned above, feel free to e-mail me. Thanx again and I hope to write back soon with better news, but until then, please keep me in your prayers!
~Kevin~
Friday, February 11, 2005
Hey guys,
It's been over a year since that whole fiasco with the hyperthyroid/ Grave's Disease, and as it turned out the day they were supposed to irradicate my thyroid for good, the nurse paused and said, "wait a sec, you don't have Graves Disease... you have accute thyroiditis" So as it turned out, my hyperthyroid was only temporary and went away quickly. Since then though, my sister has been diagnosed with a new auto-immune disease (well new to us) called celiac's disease. She had been feeling really sick and tired for her last 2 years of high school, and then during her 2nd year of college she was just too sick to do anything besides get out of bed and she couldn't eat many foods. They tested her for celiac's disease and her results came back positive. For all of those who don't know what celiac's disease, lets just say that I'd rather have diabetes AND hyperthyroid than JUST celiac's disease any day... but then again my sis would rather have celiac's disease than diabetes because she hates needles, so I guess it's preference. The thing that makes celiac's disease so bad is the fact that you can't eat any glutens. Glutens are proteins found in wheat, barley, oats, and many processed foods. If you don't understad the enormity of what I just said, imagine not being able to eat any food products in the isles of the grocery store because if you do, it will make you so sick that you have no energy to even get out of bed. Glutens are even found in shampoo, lipstick, stamps, envelopes, and soaps, so my sister has to read every list of ingredients before she can eat any food, or before she can use any product that might be suseptable to harm her. We haven't been able to eat out at restaurants because if the food that she is served was cooked with or near any glutens, then she'll be sick... EVEN A CRUMB. We've had to get her her own set of silverware and cooking items so that she doesn't cross contaminate her non-gluten foods with our glutens. So, my sister has been gluten free for about 2 months and she's not feeling much better. It's been a slow process because we are now realizing that she's not only celiac, but is also iron difficient and has possible food allergies. I really hope that she gets better soon because she's my sister and even though we butt heads daily, I still love her.
There are a few good things going in my life, it's almost been 2 months to the day that I've been dating my girlfriend, Joey, and she's been the best thing in my life. I never thought that I could find happiness at such a young age and I can't believe how lucky I am. We're alway so happy together and even when my day is horrible I can always look forward to her brightening my day. My sister even gets something out of my relationship with Joey. Since Joey loves horseback riding and does it every week, my sis, who's currently taking a semester off from college and is taking a photography class at a local community college, wanted to go take pictures of her for her class. Since as long as I can remember, my sister has loooooooved horseback riding, but the only problem is she has nowhere to ride, and if she had a place, the cost of riding would shy her away from it. As luck would have it, the place where Joey horseback rides, the owners are looking for people to ride their horses for FREE, and they invited my sister to do it. It's like a dream come true for my sis since she's had little to no exercise in the past 2 months with her whole celiac thing, and it is a great way to have her get energy back and enjoy it at the same time. Now that you're all caught up, I just want to say one more thing before I go, over the past couple weeks/ months my grades have been dropping, and I've been tired more often (which is SOOOOOO unlike me.... I get up at 7:30 on a weekend for the fun of it) and I've had stomach aches and headaches almost on a regular basis. Although my whole family was tested for celiac when we found out that my sister had it, these are all symptoms of celiac's disease, so we're thinking of getting an endoscopy done on me to find out once and for all if I have it. I realllllllllllllly hope that I don't because all the food that I love to eat would be gone for good but then again I'd also like to find out why I've been getting bad grades and feeling bad recently. I'm just a highschool student trying to get into a good college, and gettting worse grades isn't a beneficial thing for that believe it or not. :-D
So to summerize, I don't have Grave's disease... still, my sis has celiac, I have a awesome girlfriend, I might have celiac's but I REALLY hope not. If anyone would like to talk to my sister about what she's going through (or me), just e-mail me at kevin@kevinscrazyworld.com and I'll write back to you asap, or if it's to my sis, I'll ask have her read it and have write back to you. We could use suggestions about ways to make a celiac's life better or ideas about what I may have (if it's not celiac's) from anyone's personal stories. Some good celiac websites that we've found are: www.glutensolutions.com , www.glutenfreepantry.com , www.Celiac.com , and a good online support group is http://forums.delphiforums.com/celiac/start . If you have any questions, comments, or just want to talk you can either sign my guestbook or e-mail me. Oh, one more thing, I TURN 17 IN A MONTH!!
~Kevin~
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
At the end of this summer, I went to the eyedoc for my usual check up and to get my contacts updated. (I'm am Nearsighted.) In the waiting room, there was a movie playing about Paragon CRT lenses that you can wear only at night and have perfect vision ALL DAY. My doctor told me that I would be a great candidate for CRT. Later in the month I was fitted for the CRT lenses. Using a Topography machine my eye doctor was able to perfect the lenses to fit my eyes just right! It's so easy too. I put the contacts in before I go to sleep and wake up with 20/20 vision or better! Check it out! http://paragoncrt.com/consumers/index.asp
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Hey guys! Check out my new pump and new meter! I no longer have to carry my meter separately!
It attaches right to the pump! Using infrared technology to communicate info from the meter to the pump, it transfers my blood sugar reading right to the pump. I can then choose whether or not I want to do a correction bolus or meal bolus. Very cool. One less thing to carry. See more at http://www.cozmore.com/default.cfm/PID=1.3
Friday, July 30, 2004
Caffeine may interfere with diabetes control
Body's ability to handle blood sugar could be affected, study finds
Updated: 1:59 p.m. ET July 26, 2004
WASHINGTON - Caffeine could interfere with the body’s ability to handle blood sugar, thus worsening type 2 diabetes, U.S. researchers said Monday.
advertisementThe team at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina found a strong correlation between caffeine intake at mealtime and increased glucose and insulin levels among people with type 2 diabetes.
The American Diabetes Association says that at least 90 percent of the 17 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes have type 2, in which the body either does not produce enough insulin or cells ignore the insulin, which the body needs to convert food into energy.
The findings are significant enough that the researchers recommend people with diabetes consider reducing or eliminating caffeine from their diets.
“In a healthy person, glucose is metabolized within an hour or so after eating. Diabetics, however, do not metabolize glucose as efficiently,” said James Lane, a psychiatry professor who led the study.
“It appears that diabetics who consume caffeine are likely having a harder time regulating their insulin and glucose levels than those who don’t take caffeine.”
Writing in the journal Diabetes Care, Lane and colleagues said they studied 14 habitual coffee drinkers with type 2 diabetes.
The researchers put the volunteers on a controlled diet.
They took their medications, had their blood tested and then were given caffeine capsules. More blood was taken then and after giving the volunteers a liquid meal supplement.
Caffeine had little effect on glucose and insulin levels when the volunteers fasted, the researchers found.
But after the liquid meal, those who were given caffeine had a 21 percent increase in their glucose level and insulin rose 48 percent.
“The goal of clinical treatment for diabetes is to keep the person’s blood glucose down,” Lane said in a statement.
“It seems that caffeine, by further impairing the metabolism of meals, is something diabetics ought to consider avoiding. Some people already watch their diet and exercise regularly. Avoiding caffeine might be another way to better manage their disease. In fact, it’s possible that staying away from caffeine could provide bigger benefits altogether.”
