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2005/07/05, 01:14 AM
Sandy this is what I was able to find
LIVING MY DREAM
by Nora House-Petz
Includes photo of Nora House-Petz, wearing her insulin pump.
I'm a body-builder, but I'm legally blind, I'm diabetic, and I use an insulin pump.
I'm from Akron, OH, have two parents, and two older sisters, Lisa and Marsha, and a little brother, Tim.
I've had diabetes for 28 years. I was diagnosed in 1975, when I was nine-years-old. When I was diagnosed, I remember my parents both crying, because back then, they were told that I might manage to live 20 years. So when I turned 20, I was thinking, "boy, getting close to 20 years, I'm supposed to be dying soon."
When I was diagnosed, my mom sat my brother and sisters down and they all had to learn how to give me a shot, test my urine, and understand that when I started getting cranky if I was playing with them, it was time to feed me. And my parents, the way they raised us, is they made me feel special, but we all ate as if we had diabetes, we all ate healthy, we all had snacks. My mother was a nurse, and she was very protective.
My family was very involved. They all participated, they all gave me the shots - my sister Marsha was always very afraid of the insulin needle; but, my sister Lisa and brother Tim, my mom taught them all how to give me my shot. They didn't do it daily, but if I asked them, "could you give me my shot?" they did it. I always tried to do my own shots, but they knew how, too.
My mom always stressed exercise with me, walking, and I was always a walker and a bicycle rider. When I would ride my bicycle, after glucose monitors became available, I would stop half way through, test my blood, and then I would know if I needed to eat a snack.
And then I volunteered for a huge, important diabetes study, the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT). I was accepted, and chosen for the "standard" group (rather than the multiple-injection "tight control" group), so all I had to do was keep the diabetes treatment standard, like we did when we were growing up, except I took three shots instead of just two. I got in when I was 18-years-old. In the standard group, you tested your blood sugar three times a day, took two to three insulin injections, and kept your blood sugars anywhere from 200 and under. It wasn't like the tight control group where they kept it at 120-130 and below.
During the DCCT, my diabetes stayed stable, but then I went to the eye doctor, in 1996, for my annual eye exam, and found I had diabetic retinopathy. It was pretty bad, and I am now blind from diabetic retinopathy - one eye is blind and I'm visually impaired in the other. I have had a vitrectomy.
In 1998, I had foot surgery - and it didn't go as well as I would have liked it, so I had to stop my exercise of walking and riding a bicycle. The foot surgery was due to a plantar wart, and when the podiatrist did the surgery to remove it, me being diabetic so many years, somehow it never healed, it took months and months. You live and learn, you know you never let anyone unfamiliar with the diabetic foot touch your feet. That was my first and only mistake - but now I couldn't do the same exercises, the same activities I'd been doing.
I still needed to exercise, so I decided to go into heavy weight training, because in that, I didn't have to use my feet a lot. I don't have trouble walking now, but my left big toe is numb, there's no feeling in it. But I've learned to adapt. I walk with a slight limp, my balance is off a little, but I'm a fighter, I'm gonna beat that, too.
After that foot surgery, and my vision going bad, my husband went out and bought us a tandem bike, a bicycle built for two, and he would stick me on the back of it and we would just ride and ride. My husband, Ralph Petz, and I would cover 20 to 30 miles on the tandem bike and we still do that a lot.
When Ralph and I ride the tandem, he'll say, after about mile ten, "test your blood sugar," and I'll test, and we can still keep riding and I can just do what I need to do. I use the One-Touch monitor.
I realized lifting weights could stabilize your blood sugars the same way as "aerobic exercise," maybe easier, because you don't have to spike the lows. I saw lifting weights was a good form of exercise, and then I started seeing great changes in my body. All my life I always wanted to be a body builder - it was my dream - but I was always told: "You'll never be able to do that because you can't repair your muscles in time," or "not if you have juvenile diabetes," or "because of your blood sugars." I heard every excuse out of every doctor, so about two years ago I decided I was going to try it anyway. So I would walk around saying, "I'm going to be the first blind diabetic body builder." And here I am, getting ready for a competition, it's a dream come true.
Last July, I was trying to start my diet, and I would just bottom out, because I was taking injections and the insulin was already in me. Something had to change.
So my endocrinologist said: "The only way you can really achieve this dream, Nora, is if you get on the insulin pump." So I did it, I got myself a Minimed Paradigm insulin pump. And I make the statement: I can't believe you can have diabetes and feel so healthy. The insulin pump has just changed my whole life. I'm so "normal," it gives me so much flexibility.
I'm really fortunate in that I'm energized but it helps that I've got a lot of people around me I enjoy. I make people understand when I meet them, the first thing out of my mouth (and even growing up in school, I used to stand in front of my classroom and say it) is: "I have diabetes, these are my symptoms and I'm not ashamed I have diabetes." I tell people, "Hey, you can have it, and it's not a curse, it's a positive thing; I'm healthier than the average person because I eat right, I exercise, I sleep right, I do all the things most people ought to do."
The first body-building competition I'll compete in is at West Penn State. It's sponsored by Rick Balbo and it's a national body-building competition (he's the local sponsor of body-building competitions at West Penn State). The second one is NPC Midwest Novice Fitness and Figure Competition, at Indianapolis, and that's sponsored by Michael and Jill Deak. And when I called to sign up for that one, the lady who took my call said she started crying, got chills in her - because four months ago, her 16-month- old baby was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. She was so happy to hear my encouragement, my "You know, you can do all this."
When she hung up she said, "You were my angel today." That was encouraging.
For body-building, you have to lift the weights to build your muscles up, and that, along with the diet, is how you get that "look": That lean look, those muscles. You are on a very strict diet 16 weeks before your competition. Body builders are trim, fit, and lean.
Weight training is a very good way to stabilize your blood sugars, because as you build your muscle, of course, you lose body fat and it ups your metabolism, so you're always burning energy. I really promote exercise with diabetes, they go hand in hand. and I recommend putting that number one in your life - You'll be healthier.
I'm 5' tall. The key thing is to be very lean for your competition, that's why it's so hard for a diabetic -- you've got to be healthy but really lean.
Body training - I go to the gym five days a week, and spend two hours there. I weigh 110 pounds, I'm short and petite, Mighty Mouse, I think I'm tougher than I look! I just try to be spunky, and with working with dialysis (I've been a dialysis technician for six years), my patients say: "how do you do this?"
My father goes to the gym with me a few times a weeks to check on me. I have a very supportive family, and I think if you have supportive people around you it makes it a lot easier to cope with the disease.
My trainer, Scott Buxton, I met when I was 20-years-old, so he grew up with me. Then he got into body building, so he knows a lot about diabetes and when I'm getting low. With this diet, it's very hard to diet for the competition, so he starts me out carefully. A lot of body builders take the carbohydrates out of their diet - but what we've done is keep the carbohydrates in, but they're "clean" carbs; and so at the same time I'm losing my body fat, I'm not starving or getting low. He's very careful, in the training we have, that if I train my arms one day, the next day I'll do my legs, and then we rest. We have rest days after hard days, so my muscles can repair themselves in order to train again. Being a diabetic, it takes extra days when we're training so hard, and he's very good at that.
But what's a "clean carb?" Clean carbs are: dried oats, baked potato, rice, etc. No sugar is allowed, but I can have three strawberries a day. In general I have a very good, healthy diet. I understand when you're going on a body-building diet, it's carbs, vegetables, and protein, and I understand that because I grew up that way. So I don't have to give up ice cream and everything else "normal" people eat, because I never ate it anyway. Well, we would get to sneak ONE OREO, or as mother would call it, a diabetic slice of cake. And you didn't get your bread or fruit for dinner if you had a cookie or cake. I remember growing up and counting, and my mom weighing my food, and taking this away or that away if I wanted this or that. But it worked!
You get what you give out of life. If you have a dream, just make your diabetes number one and you can achieve any dream. I put my diabetes first, I give 110%. You can achieve any goal you really set for yourself. If you keep your diabetes in control, you can do anything, by checking your blood and doing what you have to do. Just look where I am, living my dream.
Nora House-Petz
housepetz@aol.com
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I am that
which must be feared, worshipped and adored. The world is mine
now and forever.No one holds command over me. No man. No god. I am ANIMAL! and that is enough.
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