The last couple of weeks have been very disturbing for me. Well, actually it started earlier, a couple of months ago. You see, I'd begun experiencing strange symptoms which didn't make any sense at all to me. However, a week ago I found out what was going on, and, well, it was a little upsetting.

So, a couple of months ago I started feeling just a little dizzy now and then. You know the feeling, I'm sure: like I'd gotten up out of the chair too fast or spun around a bit. I didn't think anything of it as there was so much else going on that I just chalked it up to stress or something like that.

This was followed by thirst. Oh, let me tell you, I got so thirsty! I've always drunk diet Coke, but now I started drinking bottle after bottle until I was literally purchasing three six-packs a day! It seemed like I could not get enough liquids.

Naturally, this led to another problem: I could not be too far away from a bathroom. Sleep starting becoming difficult as I had to constantly get up, sometimes as often as every hour, to visit the little boys room.

On top of that, and most disturbing of all, my vision started to do strange things. I began seeing blurry spots, halos and things were a little fuzzy around the edges. On top of that, my eyes felt grainy and dusty all of the time.

Other small symptoms appeared now and then. I had a brief headache, some nausea, then another headache. It was very strange, but I was under a lot of stress at the time and didn't think much of anything at all.

You see, I was blinded by one thing: I never get sick. Because of that, it never even crossed my mind that something might actually be wrong. I just chalked it up to the events going on around me.

It wasn't that I was not confronting my symptoms, it's just that it was inconceivable to me that I could get sick.

Four weeks ago the vision problems got severe enough that I went to my doctor's office to see what was going on. I described a few of the symptoms to him, and he took out his blood pressure meter and took a check. Yep, he told me, my blood pressure was high and that could cause blurry vision. He prescribed some pills and I went on my way.

The pills didn't help the symptoms even though my blood pressure went to normal range within a week or so. My vision continued to get worse, so I visited the ophthalmologist. He looked at my eyes and prescribed new glasses.

This didn't feel right at all. My vision could not have changed that much in just a month. I was convinced that something was going on with me, but I was not sure what it could be.

 I continued to be thirsty and started drinking lots of juice. Now my vision really started to get bad and the other symptoms became severe.

 One day I walked into the kitchen at work and saw a couple of donuts. I ate them both and went back to my desk - and almost passed out. My co-workers were quite amused as they said I got this glazed look on my face and just "went out of it" for a while.

  Now that should have been a big clue, but I still didn't get it, at least not for a week or so. The symptoms continued and I started to catch a clue (finally) as to what might be going on.

That same night (a couple of weeks ago) when I arrived home I immediately found my wife's glucose meter, pricked my finger and put a drop of my blood on the test strip. Forty-five seconds later I knew the answer.

I have diabetes - type 2 diabetes. A non-diabetic person's blood sugar level tends to float between 90 and 120 or even get as high as 150 after a meal. Sugar is highly regulated by various organs in the body, as it can be deadly if the levels get too high or too low. Normally a person does not need to worry about this as the body knows how to perform this control.

In a type 2 diabetic, this control is not working properly and the sugar level fluctuates wildly. My sugar level that evening was at 450, which is very, very high. A hundred points higher and I might have found myself unconscious and a hundred points higher than that probably would have landed me in the hospital.

Believe it or not, it was such an incredibly relief to finally know what was going on with my body. While it was upsetting to learn I had diabetes, knowing about a condition means it can be controlled and handled. And handle it I have done, and now my sugar is normal - as long as I take some medication, test it regularly and control my diet.