That’s my Dadism for today. He used to blow dry his toes. I thought it was weird at first, I am pretty sure I even told him that. It went something like this “Dad, you are weird. Blowdryers are for your hair.” “Well, it’s very important for me feet to be dry and a blow dryer helps me do that even better than a towel would”. I remember that conversation vividly from our house in Meredith. So, I was probably in 8th grade.

Dad had diabetes and was so anal about how he cared for his feet – he knew as he aged, they could become problematic – for many reasons.

I saw a movie when I when I was in high school with Tom Hanks and Jackie Gleason, Nothing In Common. I remember Jackie Gleason (who was Tom Hanks Dad) had diabetes – and I think he had his feet amputated because of his disease as a result of him not taking good care of himself. It took a Hollywood translation with the disease as a secondary message like that to give me perspective of the severity of my Dad’s disease. My Dad didn’t expose or burden us with it, ever. We only knew about his needles (and later a pump) and the regularity of his need for insulin in terms of his maintenance.

It’s a crazy disease that I always thought would have a cure in his lifetime. I guess I did always think he would reap the benefits of all the research. It’s taken a different toll on people these days so I think they are doing even more research BUT it’s focused on the overweight people that are being diagnosed. Strange how much it has evolved.