60 Day Fishing Expedition

I could not honestly tell you how I got sucked into it.

One moment I was preparing to watch a video on YouTube that I wanted to see; the next, some fellow was telling me about how he almost got his leg cut off. Now, according to him, he’d lost a lot of weight and was no longer diabetic.

“Horseshit,” I thought, “Does he still have both legs? Can we pan out on the shot?”

I remember a conversation I had with my father, another in a line of direct diabetics, Type II, one each, and he told me at a young age that the best thing I could do was to pretend I had it, and then live that way. Avoid sugar and blood sugar spiking foods, and maybe the dart would miss me.

I didn’t, and it didn’t.

So this somewhat predictable supplement ad still got my attention. I went ahead and watched it to its end. Many of the key plot points I predicted, more or less.

I knew there would be an illness. I knew it would turn bad. I also knew that there would be a sweeping figure to rush in with some secret Harlan Sanders mixture of 11 herbs that would bring relief and salvation. It’s just been done before. With testosterone, with weight loss, with weight gain, all kinds of crap. Sometimes literally.

There would have to be somebody you’d trust and appreciate. A Tibetan monk, in this case. The ad is funky because it’s almost like they don’t want the guy who’s supposed to be the actual figure here to say too much. He gets a sentence in, then the voiceover actor that is supposed to play him comes in like a game of verbal Whack-a-Mole and talks over him. They pronounce the monk’s name differently. I trust the guy in the lens more than the actor on that.

They claim 72,000 people have used this product to cure and abolish their diabetes. They claim 58 of 60 tested in their blind group have been cured. The last two are relegated to low-level issues.

As they put it, the argument is that a lipid called Ceramide gets into the bloodstream and basically decides to shellac your insides as if they were tagging a biological railcar. They claim that it is not sugar and high-carb foods that cause diabetes.

They say they have been shut down by Big Pharma that doesn’t want this to get out, or they lose the $2.3B that is claimed to be made on this affliction. The message is that you need to act fast before they get got again.

And the tea! Oh, the tea, it is the 11 herbs that cure what ails ya, and they will share what those are at the end of the video. Be aware that you are allowed to stop or pause the video, rewind or slow it down at no point. You have to watch it at full speed, and like a drill sergeant, you get it, or you don’t.

That was when I suspected they had made a pill out of it.

Five minutes later, I would be proved correct. It had to be precise amounts of the concoction, or things would just fall to shit. I heard the same schpiel from the beefy testosterone guy, except I didn’t put any money in his pocket.

They have a money-back guarantee. That is a challenge I shall accept.

the lay of the land

I’m doing this somewhat for personal reasons and more for the ability to use the Journalism paper I recently earned from Michigan State University.

I suffer from Type II Diabetes, as has been made apparent. My sugar stays between 330 and 550, usually higher. I have issues with sleep which explains me writing this copy at six in the morning. I will probably only sleep about three hours, and then I’ll have to catnap at some point in the day.

My circadian rhythm is shot up worse than a bad date at the OK Corral.

There are cramps, tingling in my toes, dry feet that mean I have to wear those neato soft socks, and a nice meal at a fast-food restaurant will just about kill me.

I mean, it will put me in the hospital in a coma, and I will become more dead than Monty Python’s Polly Parrot. And like her, I shall not be pining for the fjords.

I will help them cheat it a little. I plan to intermittent fast overnights and watch what I am eating instead of running around with a funnel cake and a death wish.

I plan to hydrate as much as I can.

I will run blood tests at noon and midnight every day and a weigh-in on Sundays.

The pills come in about 36 hours.

As of this moment, I am 192 pounds. I gained weight over the past month. At noon, my blood was at 331, and at midnight was 510.

I’ll report tomorrow on things, and for the next 60 days, we’re going to see what the doctor tried to hide from us.