LETTER TO ADAM

You know I was shocked at your last visit to see that your A1C increased from 9% last August to 13.1% now. Which means you’re going backwards -- fast. And during this time you missed two follow-up visits to determine if your current medicines were adequately controlling your diabetes. You insisted last August that you were going to make the necessary changes in both your diet, and lifestyle, but it appears you didn’t make any change at all. Your A1C is now Empire-State-Building-high. And for you, this is not good. And worse than that – the really dangerous thing -- is you don’t seem to care, or think it matters.

You admitted that the only reason you came in this month was because you were running out of your medication. What’s the good of taking medicine, assuming you’re taking it as you say, if you don’t know if the medicine is therapeutic or not? How can you be so sure you don’t need helper medicine if you don’t monitor your blood glucose, A1C or your blood pressure? You’re not even taking an occasional finger-stick glucose. You’re indifferent about the whole project or the consequences of your bad choices. You’ve shirked personal responsibility and you don’t care about yourself.

You know, the world had existed for many years before you, me or anyone, were even a thought to anyone on earth. Before you were even a thought in the minds of your parents, you were nothing. But it was God who, knowing you before you even came to be, drew you out of this nothingness to bring you into being. He too really had no need of you. But it is the particular you that, by the grace of God, came to be a living being. It’s by the goodness of God that you are even breathing.

And here you are, the indifferent you, acting and feeling like you’re ten feet tall and bullet proof, destined by your own choices to most likely live a much shorter life than you otherwise might, apparently with no more appreciation and value of the goodness of God than if he had not been your Creator. For someone who's putting themselves up as the king of his world you're becoming a pitiful example of a leader.

You are totally oblivious to the miracle that is you. Your own personal neglect testifies to this. Totally oblivious to what it means to be in the world; to be a gift, a gift from God, to your parents, to your wife, and to your community. If you don’t want to take care of yourself, then the very least you can do is to thank God that he drew you out of nothing and by his mercy has brought you into being. But, it is obvious to see that since you don’t care about yourself you couldn't possibly muster enough gratitude to thank God or for that matter, anyone else.

Maybe you’re distracted. Maybe not. But regardless, you’ve willfully made choices about what you eat and how you live that’s worsened your medical conditions of diabetes and high blood pressure. You’re on a path to self-destruction. Confirm this self-destructive path yourself. You can google it on the Internet. It’s not a matter of “if” you incur the complications that come with these uncontrolled conditions, but rather “when” you will incur them. And, if you were listening at our last visit, you know what they are: heart attacks, stroke, blindness, aneurysms, clots, kidney failure, amputations, and others.

Since you’ve opted for the darker path, I suggest you maybe kneel before God and at least thank him for at least having given you, you the work of his hands, breath. That you apologize that you’ve been complacent in yourself, that you’re sorry for not being able, or capable, of taking better care of your body.

If you’re relying on God to save you from yourself then perhaps it would be wise to first thank him for bringing you this far, because it’s by his grace that he’s saved you from your bad choices and noncompliance.

Or, on the other hand, you may want to give thanks to God for his mercy in creating you out of nothing. And to dedicate yourself to him for the change you so desire, if you really desire it. And to pray for his strength in making this resolution.

Otherwise, at the rate you are going, you are not going to be with us as long as you might have hoped you would be. And at best will not be the person, in the months and years to come, that you know yourself to be today.

I hope you can make the change.