Brown-Good, Red-BAD!

Over the last 6-8 months, I've been trying to live a better diabetic lifestyle.  Cutting out carbs where I can.  Gone are the late night ice cream treats, standard fast-food joint combo meals, and extra helpings of mashed potatoes. 

Suck.

Well, at least I still had my caffeinated drinks.  That was until I read multiple reports like this, which say that caffeine inhibits the body's ability to process sugars via insulin.  I felt my numbers weren't reflecting the sacrifices I was making to get them lower, so I decided to see if this study was true.  So on January 8th, I began my caffeine-free diet.  Almost immediately I saw my numbers lower by as much as 20 points.  Finally, an encouraging turn!  But now I was relegated to drinking water (no flavor) and caffeine-free Diet Pepsi (brown crayon water). 

Double Suck.

On Wednesday of this week I was whining to a lady coworker about how much I hate my eating life when she told me about flavor packets for water.  Basically, adult Kool-Aid with aspartame.  She offered me a few packets - grape (her favorite), lemonade, cherry lemonade, and raspberry ice.  So beginning Thursday, I started my second (third, fourth, or nth) childhood.  Grape was good.  The lemonade flavors left gunk at the back of my throat.  But the raspberry ice showed promise.

This morning I had 40 oz of the raspberry ice mixture.  Things went well until about 10am when I felt The Urge.  You know The Urge.  If you say you don't know The Urge, you're lying.  It's the one where you feel like Jim Phelps from Mission Impossible hearing the message that your colon will self-destruct in 60 seconds.  Hopefully you're not in a car,  in the boss' office, on the phone, with a long-winded co-worker, or - gasp! - giving a presentation or speech!  Luckily, I could hit the "send calls" button and quickly scoot to the basement bathroom.

Interlude...

I have a lot of bathroom rules - one of which is that you don't show your co-workers "who Number 2 works for."  The sounds and smells that are produced are best left anonymous, and that can only be accomplished by not letting the people who know you see you walk out of the stall.  Hence, I go to another location.  And the beautiful thing is that no one expects to see me in the basement bathroom.  Score!  Now, back to the story....

I arrive at the "Cadillac of the poopin' stools" - the handicrapper - and do my business.  A little more liquid than what I like, but nothing that I wasn't expecting based on The Urge.  As I left I sensed that I wasn't quite "finished" but felt that it was "safe" to return to my desk.  Forty-five minutes later I was back.  Even more liquid, but now with a red tint.  Lunch followed with a trip to the potty about an hour later.  This time all liquid, AND ALL RED!  I couldn't believe what I was seeing!  It was almost like the  Nile water-turned-to-blood scene from "The Ten Commandments".  I began to freak out.  All I could do was clean up and run!  I'm not even sure I flushed!  The next user was likely to have a heart attack from what he would see.  Scratch that - it'd probably be me based on the 3 "big potties" at work today (a record I hope not to break)...

When I got back to my desk, I looked at one of the packages I'd been ingesting (not digesting).  It said:  "Crystal Light On The Go!"

I should say so.

 

POST SCRIPT:  Prudence was reviewing this post (lucky lady!).  She questioned the use of the manufacturer's name in the post and pondered whether I could be sued.  Then we joked that all I needed was a 40oz drink and about 3 hours to produce the evidence.  I think I'm in the clear...unlike my pooh.