Met with Dr. Wubben this morning and was impressed. She clearly did her research on me prior to the appointment, was very thorough, asked lots of questions, had a couple of theories, and had a game plan for moving forward. We walked through the notes and logs I’ve been keeping. She was also informed me that with the home glucose meters, the lower the value, the less reliable they are.
Obviously still way too early for a diagnosis, so more testing is on the docket for early next week. She agreed we need to do blood work while I’m symptomatic and figure out where my insulin levels (and a few other things) are at when the glucose is low. There are also few other things she wants to check for. Her and Ayla (Dr Wubben’s RN assistant) are working out the logistics and will be getting back to me. In the meantime, she recommended lowering my intake of carbohydrates as they seem to have an adverse affect on my insulin/glucose regulation process.
One of her theories has to do with antibodies attaching to the insulin as its produced, inhibiting its effectiveness on glucose regulation. This is apparently treatable with prednisone. This is a pretty rare condition that primarily affects Asian, and occasionally, African American populations. Unless somebody has some genealogical or genetic information on me that I’m not privy to, call me skeptical for now. She is also not ruling out insulinoma. This makes some sense but after some additional thought, I’d have guessed this would have been spotted on the MRI. She was reasonably confident that we can rule out adrenal gland malfunction.
Joan’s father (Michele’s grandfather), John Steele, is a renowned Great Lakes Shipwreck diver. He and his diving partners have “discovered” and dove on scores of shipwrecks. John is an incredibly modest and sharp-witted man that has done a lot as a pioneer in the Great Lakes diving community. He was also on the cutting edge underwater videography. He and his partners took loads of pictures and film of the wrecks they discovered. This historical documentation has become more important with the passing of time because many wrecks have changed over the decades: artifacts have been stripped (only somewhat recently illegal), the structures have deteriorated, and the invasive zebra mussel has been introduced into the Great Lakes. There has been a bit of a dilemma within the family as to what exactly to do with the over 34,000 feet of John’s raw diving film. It wouldn’t last forever and was prohibitively expensive to be digitized. Thankfully, through the network of the dive community and some coordination from Joan & Michele, the dilemma has been resolved.
Last night there was a gathering of about 25 people at Lockwood Pioneer Diving Museum in Love’s Park, IL to celebrate John’s contributions to Great Lakes research and ship wreck discovery as a diving pioneer. Amazingly, the museum secured a grant to digitize John’s video footage and will preserve it at the museum. It is hoped that the film is usable and will produce media for past, present and future divers, researchers, and historians to use as reference materials.
John & Joan at the Lockwood Pioneer Diving Museum
Others that attended the event included: Dan Johnson (owner of the museum and a dive shop), Jack Ryan, Gayle Peterson, diving buddy Gene Turner, Paul Ehorn, Brendon Baillod, Harry Zych, Bill Steinbach and many others. Brendon presented John with a copy of his new book “Wisconsin’s Lost Ships’ that he’d had signed by all the other veteran divers. Dan Johnson gave a very nice speech. John truly enjoyed the event was was glad to reunite with several diving buddies.
John & a couple of his diving buddies
I’m so proud of John for all he has accomplished and am grateful that because the work of Joan, Michele, the Lockwood Pioneer Diving museum, and others, future generations will be able to share and learn from his work.
Michele and John at the Lockwood Pioneer Diving Museum
