Late Update #2

Where stranger things are afoot, and my life got flipped, turned upside down

Hello again, my other reader. I thought it was time for another update, since the last one was at the beginning of the new year. What's been happening? Well, I've actually been quite distracted in recent months, which has meant I've spent far less time than I would have liked playing or writing about video games - or even thinking about them, really. There are two reasons why, and one is more fun than the other, which I'll dig into in a moment.

Still, I was able to publish a few posts since my last update, which I was quite pleased with. In case anyone missed them, they were:

Open Storytelling in Breath of the Wild - Part 1

Open Storytelling in Breath of the Wild - Part 2

Sonic 3 and Knuckles - Late Retrospective

Three posts in the space of three months doesn't sound like a lot though, does it? Let me explain...

Child of the 80’s

Quite a large distraction in my household that has lasted many months is joining my son and daughter (the two eldest of my three children) in watching some amazing TV series with them. They are both teenagers now, so it has come to that point in parenthood where I can start to enjoy certain, more mature content with them - although I'll always happily watch SpongeBob Squarepants with my youngest daughter, no questions asked.

For my eldest daughter, the middle child, she loves fantasy stories, and said to me that she was looking for a new story where there was some moral ambiguity, with less clearly defined good/evil concepts. I had just finished watching a series on Netflix that I felt fit that bill, so I rewatched Arcane: League of Legends with her. I loved it the first time, but rewatching something to witness another person having a similar experience is another feeling altogether. Like me, she also loved the art style, animation, and more importantly the characters. She did not explicitly state it, but I had a feeling that her favourite character was Jinx, but overall I was glad that she could watch something with so many strong, female characters that she might be able to identify with on some level - particularly one who can punch really hard with giant, mechanised fists. She was genuinely sad when it ended.

What has taken even longer to complete though was going through every season of Stranger Things with my son. I had watched the first season many years ago when it suddenly took off, yet never got further than that. It was fortunate that my son suggested we watch it together, no doubt feeling a bit left behind in conversations with his own friends. So we have been watching, almost every night, all the seasons since before last Christmas. One of the benefits of being culturally late to every trend is that I then get to watch things uninterrupted without having to wait for seasons to be filmed!

Stranger Things has also been a great experience to share with my son, even though season four decided that episodes should last about as long as a modern day Marvel film. As of this writing, we are currently halfway through the final season, so once that is done I might be able to get more spare time to focus on other areas of my life I enjoy - like writing, perhaps.

One final thought I had whilst watching Stranger Things from beginning to end, was that it felt like each season was kind of a homage to various 80's films and popular culture. My take on this is:

• Season 1 - is partly replicating Alien, with a sole, relentless killer monster hunting them down.

• Season 2 - is then obviously Aliens, since now there are many relentless killer monsters, plus a singular creature controlling them all (the Mind Flayer).

• Season 3 - felt a lot like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as the Mind Flayer returns and controls the local populace into rebuilding itself. I also got a Terminator vibe from the Russian assassin hunting Hopper at every turn, including a very similar sounding musical motif.

• Season 4 - a horribly scarred man banished to hell, with a clawed hand, who invades traumatised teenager's dreams and terrorises them to death? Did someone say Nightmare on Elm Street?

• Season 5 - ... actually, I'm not sure what the overall theme of this season is yet. Feel free to suggest in the comments.

Threading the Needle

There was a slightly less entertaining distraction from February. I noticed that I had lost a significant amount of weight since Christmas, despite not having changed anything to do with my diet or eating habits. After noticing some other unusual symptoms, I visited my doctor, who admitted me promptly to a walk-in unit at the hospital to treat...

No Troy. Not there isn’t.

So, at the age of 42, I have been diagnosed as having type 1 diabetes. For those who don't know what that means, my body is not producing any (or not enough) insulin, a hormone that regulates glucose in your bloodstream. Without insulin, your glucose levels become too high and your body cannot do anything with the excess, which for me led to:

• Weight loss, because a high level of glucose in the blood produces an excess of ketones. Ketones are responsible for breaking down fat for energy, and if your body is not getting energy in the normal way, the ketones will use up body fat instead, followed by muscle.

• More urination, as the body tries to flush out the excess glucose which it cannot pass onto your other organs or cells for energy.

• Thirst and an endlessly dry mouth, which ironically leads to further urination.

• Blurred vision, as the fluids in my eyes went a bit haywire.

All of this is called hyperglycemia. And - thankfully not in my case since I caught this early - prolonged hyperglycemia leads to long term complications like damage to blood vessels, nerves, organs, and so on. As you can imagine, it was quite important I got on top of this and got back into a more stable state.

So, how does that happen? If you are diabetic yourself, then I'm preaching to the choir, feel free to skip ahead to the more interesting part of this post. For those who don't understand, let me try to briefly explain that I now need to inject insulin into myself multiple times a day, before every meal, to balance my glucose levels. How do I know how much to inject though? Well, that is what I've been spending the past couple of months learning how to do.

Basically, I need to understand how many grams of carbohydrates are in all food I eat from now on, since this is where the glucose comes from (not sugar directly, a common misconception). So for every meal, snack or even drink sometimes, I total up the carbs in every ingredient, or refer to nutritional information if available. Then I apply a ratio to it decided by my healthcare team. For myself, that is 1 unit of insulin from an injection pen for every 20g carbs, so a meal of 100g carbs for me would be 5 units of insulin. Great, so I can eat now?

Wrong! I also need to account for if I'm already starting a meal with too high a glucose level. If so, I need to add correction units on top. My correction factor is 1 additional unit for every 4 mmol/L above 10 mmol/L - so if my glucose level is currently at 14 mmol/L, I add 1 more unit on top of the meal. So I can eat now?

Wrong! Did I factor in activity after eating? A working body would naturally increase or decrease insulin along with exercise, since your muscles require glucose transferred to get the energy you need for any additional activity. However, I will now be injecting a constant stream of insulin that will not leave despite exercise. I've had issues on timing my dose and then even just going for a walk afterwards because my glucose level plummets due to the imbalance. So, I might have to deduct insulin units to account for that. So... I can eat now?

Wrong! Counting the carbohydrates isn't enough. Does the food contain a lot of protein or fats? Because guess what, high fat/protein foods actually delay carbohydrate absorption. Again, I've had issues with timing because I did not understand this initially, leading to huge slumps when eating something like pizza - a high-carb base with a high-fat cheese topping. For this, I've learned I usually need to split my dose before and after eating to account for this, and remember the timings and dosages for each side. So... I can eat... now??

Fine, I guess so.

Me trying to eat a sandwich

I haven't even touched on lots of other factors to consider, like temperature, alcohol, driving, and other things I haven't even discovered yet. Nonetheless, those are the basics I need to handle every mealtime from now on. I must make sure that my glucose levels do not go too high, but also that they don't drop too low either, since that would be worse and could lead to unconsciousness if I didn't treat that in time. Everything must be in a nice equilibrium for as much as I can manage.

Oh, and I need to do this forever. Well, that's a bit melodramatic. Let's just say for the rest of my life instead.

I hear you Ron

Adapting to this has consumed at least 40-50% of my brainpower as I'm learning new routines and new information I didn't need before. Not forgetting my usual life responsibilities, like work and family, and adding more medical appointments on top, has resulted in less leisure time recently, and video games and other hobbies had to go by the wayside for a while. Even keeping up with reading everyone's wonderful Substack posts became harder. I like to spend time reading everything written and share and comment on what I like, but recently that had to devolve into a simple click of the "Like" button and no more; it felt like laziness on my part, yet it was all the mental energy I could muster sometimes.

However, this is not a sob story, and I will politely decline any sympathy raised. This is simply a fact of life I will live with now, and it will become more natural over time. Already I have managed to get my glucose levels to a steadier state and am on target more often than not. I am blessed to live in an age where technology has caught up; I have a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) stuck to my arm which is connected to my smartphone, allowing me (and my healthcare team) to monitor my glucose all the time. I also cannot fault the NHS (the UK's public health service), who have done nothing but support me whenever I've needed it. I've already put on more weight and am feeling a lot healthier than I was a couple of months ago, and therefore slightly more relaxed too. Everything is going well.

Coming Soon

Given my recent diagnosis, I've given this a lot of thought and decided it's time for a hard pivot. This means my Substack is now going to be rebranded as "Diabetes with Dia-Petey"! Every week I will be discussing all the latest health news, sharing recipes and tips, giving updates on...

... I'm sorry, I couldn't say that with a straight face. I almost got you though, right?

Fear not, other reader. I'm already bored of managing the minutia of my body, I have no intention of inflicting that on you too. No, this will remain my happy place, where I talk about the things I enjoy and hope you do too.

Looking back on what I said in Late Update #1, I noticed that I said I had many ideas for posts, yet only managed to produce a fraction of them. I've taken that on board, and decided to ignore that and promise just as much. Shall we see how well I get on?

Here are some ideas I'm interested in perusing further, with no guarantees on timelines or actual manifestation:

• I promised that I would like to discuss my favourite ever game, Super Metroid. The draft is still just sitting there, calling out to me! Maybe one day it will become visible...

• I want to attempt something different with my writing, and expand on the topics I cover to venture slightly beyond video games. Now that I have watched Arcane: League of Legends on Netflix (twice), I feel there is something I want to say about it. This one might take me some time to get right...

• I've been shocked to discover that I'm obsessed with the music in Super Mario Wonder. So, I shall attempt to use words to describe a wonderful (pun intended) audio experience. What could go wrong?

• Last month, I attended a retro games convention for the first time. With lots of photos taken, perhaps you might like to see what that was like?

• Finally, after getting the remastered DOOM + DOOM II on sale over Christmas, I've been playing it properly for the first time in decades. There really is something about it, isn't there? Let me see if I can articulate my thoughts on it.

Thanks again for reading, and I hope I can update the frequency a bit more going forward.