Okay, fear and concentrating on the negative do not get good results, do not help either the patient or the doctor/patient relationship!

My husband is nearly 70, has smoked for 50 or so years, is grossly obese, "pre-diabetic" (takes the oral pills) and got a gash in his leg that got infected and "cured" and then the infection came back.

So, I made him go to the doctor again and they're doing the same-old/same-old but it wasn't healing very fast and that bothered me; I started doing some reading and reading aloud to him; how smoking and diabetes and poor leg circulation/infections do not go together and the #1 help would be to quit smoking (so his leg won't need amputating, which would really make me angry, having to care for him then?) and so, I started reading some of the possible bad things that could happen to him aloud.

When we had our regular quarterly doctor's appointments a week or two later, as I was leaving I asked the doctor to "make him quit smoking" (he saw me first, would see my husband next in the room next door), and told him what I had been reading to my husband, and the doctor agreed with my assessment/reading, mumbled something to me about how people like my husband don't get it until he sees them hospitalized and the upshot was that my husband will be having a leg circulation test as the beginning of reading him the riot act (I hoped). But that's not until the 27th of December and there are no changes happening in any other way as a result, that I can see.

My husband (and me, I have my own problems!) has to want better health more than he wants the status quo. We can worry about the future but we often just compare our worries with what we have now that isn't as bad and let it go? Now I hear you (and me) lamenting our past acts, which also does not help us now. Yes, you will probably be taking insulin; are you finally working to lose weight or get more exercise, eat "better"? Or, because you are taking insulin (and I don't have to "yet") are you deciding it is too late to do anything positive about your health, not worth the time/effort to feel better, not something high enough on your work list?

Think of the effort we have made to post these posts, to feel like idiots, to think and talk about our problems? I have been on PsychCentral this morning at least 2-3 hours. What else might I have accomplished in that 2-3 hours? In the next 2-3 hours? It has not been all bad here; I have improved my writing ability, my ability to express myself; I have probably helped someone, given someone an idea they can use to help themselves, comforted or soothed someone a bit that was hurting or, as now, needled someone or myself into "doing" something they really want or need to do in their life. But how does that compare to the actual doing of something in my life? I only have so much time, energy; am I using it to the best of my abilities?