Health

I'm glad that someone in my family is healthy (actually several some ones, but this has not been the ideal year. My granddaughter is twenty, and when she had her baby (almost three years ago) she developed type two diabetes. Since then she has had nothing but health problems (some of them self developed. She was a little plump but after diabetes she slimmed down a lot. Everytime she used her insulin to keep her blood sugar in line she gained weight, so guess what? ) At the current time she has a neuropathy that seems to have reached her intestines, so that eating is painful and not very useful. (Living on Ensure isn't fun) then, last week she became dehydrated and ended up in the ICU. In that process she had an MRI and was told that her first through fourth lumbar vertebrae (May actually be disks) have degenerated. When my daughter asked what that meant, the nurse said that she is a twenty year old girl with an eighty year old back, and that she would probably be on pain medications for the rest of her life. She has medicade but is otherwise uninsured, so that it appears that she is unlikely to have surgery, and they didn't actually tell her what kind of surgery (if any) would be in line. They say that the vertebrae are unrelated to her diabetes, and they didn't give much of a clue as to what might have caused the degeneration. She just lies in ICU connected to tubes at this time, but has almost surrendered her whole life. I would give almost anything to be of real help to her, but I don't have a clue. (I can relate to the neuropathy, I have had a peripheral neuropathy for sixteen years, and after a while you just say to yourself "My feet and hands are numb, the bottoms of my feet burn and hurt, and I am just going to live my life the best way I can". ) The thought of a twenty year old with such a painful future is difficult to comprehend.