Every silver lining has a cloud, which has a silver lining (and maybe another cloud…)

I don’t believe in karma. But now and then, it does feel a little bit like there’s a malicious and/or mischievous fate determined to kick us just when we are at our best.

And at other times, it feels like things are always darkest before the dawn, and new hope arises from the ashes of despair.

These last two weeks, I can really relate.

Two weeks ago today, I got the news that I had been selected for redundancy. No, I don’t work for Oracle, but my company, also a global software company, made 4% of its workforce redundant overnight – ostensibly for similar reasons – a major refocus on AI projects. There is clearly a sense that AI can/will make the company more efficient and that these 880 individuals won’t be missed. Of course, they are wrong. I have specialist knowledge that literally a handful of people in my industry share, which AI can never replace, and at a time when my industry is undergoing a historically unprecedented boom!

But that never stops corporate bean-counters from doing their thing.

Anyway, I was due the following Friday (March 27th) to have my quarterly diabetic checkup with my GP, and I was still very excited to hear how well I had done over the preceding 3 months in terms of my blood glucose levels – my HbA1C results. However, on Thursday, I received an automated reschedule notification, pushing it out 6 weeks to early May! Annoying!

Undeterred by this news and my impending redundancy, I decided to pay for a private test from MonitorMyHealth and sent away a blood sample on Monday, getting the results on Wednesday. The results were frankly incredible, beyond my wildest expectations – I had effectively reached type 2 diabetes remission in just 100 days, going from an HbA1c measurement of 79 mmol/mol (9.4%) to 42 mmol/mol (6%)! Here in the UK that is the borderline between “normal” blood sugar and “prediabetes”.

It was by any measure a simply fantastic result. And I was looking forward to celebrating over the weekend, as I was due to go to a wedding on Good Friday up in Newcastle, and with that result, I might even have allowed myself a slice of actual wedding cake! 🍰

But by Thursday evening, I was sick as a dog – a cough, mild flu symptoms, but worst of all, at the same time, an awful gastrointestinal bug that had me never straying too far away from the nearest bathroom.

While I’d joked on Wednesday about my results representing my own personal Easter rebirth, my Easter weekend was in fact ruined. There was no way I could risk driving for 3.5 hours, or, of course, risk infecting fellow wedding guests with the flu. Or risk an accident on the dance floor, for that matter!

I was sick all over the Easter period – and still poorly today, Easter Monday.

For obvious reasons, I haven’t been able to do any fasting or exercise during this time. But one thought did occur to me, given the many, many, many trips I had made to the bathroom – sometimes only barely making it in time – surely I must have lost some weight at least? 😂

So this morning I weighed in to find that all of those dark clouds did indeed have a silver lining…

Yes, those days of illness have catapulted me to a stonking weight loss week of over 5lbs again, bringing my weight down to under 16 stone! I’m now into the 15 stone range, albeit only just. But I’ll take it! I’m not proud!😂

Also, that takes me to over 15kgs lost since December and 19kgs in total since diagnosis – this is the target weight loss I was aiming for as it’s one of the clinical recommendations for achieving type 2 diabetes remission. It also means I’ve now lost 15.78% of my starting body weight, with 10-15% of body weight being one of the other clinical recommendations.

And this now brings me shockingly close to another major weight loss milestone for me – at 101.6kgs I’m only 1.7kg away from hitting double figures in the metric system! 99kg!!!!

Yes, of course, I know this is mostly water weight (boy do I ever know!!), and there is a distinct possibility that I might see this fluctuate back upwards once I’m fully recovered, but I’ll take every victory I can get right now! 😂🤣

But also, every silver lining has its own cloud, and this is no different. Given the somewhat extreme illness-assisted weight loss this week, it should come as no great surprise to note that my blood pressure has also reduced. We know that dehydration, as caused by gastrointestinal issues like mine, results in low blood volume, which equates to low blood pressure.

This morning, my seated blood pressure results look almost “textbook perfect”: 116/80.

But given my ongoing hypertension, this just reflects how low my blood volume is. And we can demonstrate by looking at my standing blood pressure. It dropped from 116/80 with a heart rate of 74 bpm to an all-time low reading of 83/59, with my heart rate racing to 90bpm!

Low blood pressure – or hypotension – is any reading below 90/60. Not only is my systolic reading low at 83, but my diastolic also just fell under the 60 mark at 59!

The subjective evidence was equally compelling – this is the first time ever when taking my standing reading where I’ve actually had to sit down to avoid the risk of fainting. So that 83/59 is actually after I’d taken a minute to sit back down, then got back up again. It must have hit lower than that at least for a moment.

Don’t worry, I’m used to the occasional light-headedness and have trained myself instinctively to sit down any time I have even the slightest feeling of dizziness, as I did today. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

To rehydrate, I’ve already doubled up on my regular electrolyte tablets, and added a healthy dose of salt to my water, along with a further soluble High 5 electrolyte tablet! I’ll also be very liberal with the salt on anything I eat today – illnesses, especially gastrointestinal ones, can really hit your hydration levels hard and counter-intuitively, while salt is generally described as “the enemy” for people with hypertension, when your blood pressure drops like mine has done suddenly it is your best friend.