Cynthia De Gutierrez

I'm a much-traveled individual and it is in this spirit of adventure that I joined the blogher network. I love life and consider myself a true child of the universe. I believe in my intrinsic one-ness with the universe and try my very best to live a "green" life to try to preserve this world I know for the future generations to come. I know that everything happens for a reason and that everything that is happening is GOOD!


Have I Lost My Mom? Is It Too Late?

It came all of a sudden. Watching my mom drawing her blood to check her glucose level every morning before breakfast starts my everyday. She would then unfold a piece of paper where she normally notes down her numbers and would visibly relax, indicating that no insulin injection was needed. She was so good at this and I trusted her diligence completely. It was by chance that I reached out for that piece of paper to check how her diabetes was getting controlled. I was confused at what I saw. The numbers she had written were scratchy and unreadable, her dates were wrong, and they were going in all directions, totally missing the grid lines on the paper. I looked at her last legible entry. It was one month before....more
It sounds like you're doing everything that you can, so you shouldn't feel bad about that. ...more

Got Foreclosures, Anyone?

        I don't understand what is really happening with the  banks and with the real estate situation here in California. I had five properties and my sister had her own home and a rental property in Houston, Texas.  All of them were in danger of being foreclosed or auctioned of at one time or another. We both shelled out some most-needed cash just to pay professionals to help us with our problem. My sister paid  a negotiator $3,500.00 for each property....more

Do social workers really listen or have they heard it all before ?

My soon-to-be-82 year-old mother has been a diabetic since she was 40. For 25 years she has been injecting herself with insulin. She would jokingly say  that her face was the only spot still untouched by a needle.  When she joined my siblings to live here in the US, the doctors mercifully told her that her diabetes could be controlled by pills and she would only need her insulin at certain high glucose level readings. She was a changed woman after that,  popping her pills religiously....more

The Golden Girls of Fontana

Okay, so I live with my mom, my sister, and my ex-sister-in-law.  My mother is an 81-year old diabetic who is also legally blind. My younger sister is the one who wears the pants in this household. It is her house, by the way. My ex-sister-in-law  has been living with my sister for more than 20 years. We love her dearly but it's a standing joke in the family that staying with us is her way of making my brother pay. I joined this menagerie ten years ago....more