I'm a Little Bit Angry, You're a Little Bit Rock and Roll

Being a diabetic sucks.

There, I said it. I don't say it very often because, well, 1) it's all I've ever known and 2) there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

There is no cure, though promises were made to the contrary to a baby me three decades ago. Honestly, I don't see a cure happening anytime in my lifetime. Mostly because of television commercials talking about advancements in medical science making it possible for you to go from Jean-Luc Picard to Wesley Crusher in one month*. I'm not sure why medical science should be spending it's time on such trivial things as hair loss, but that's the way this world works.

If you can't tell, I'm a bit depressed about my disease today. There are certain things that most juvenile diabetics have in common. A need to over-achieve, hopeless loyalty, and extreme discipline are some of the better qualities most have, but one of the most devastating is depression.

I have been working really hard to get my health back on track. Falling into that discipline was easier than I thought it would be. But the frightening realization that I was experiencing my first side effect of the disease has helped me keep my eyes on the prize. I am down from smoking a pack a day to four and a half cigarettes yesterday and so far one and a half today. I have a quit date of a week from Wednesday but I don't like to think about it. It causes a bit of anxiety.

I know many of you have to be thinking, why not just quit now, are a few cigarettes a day really worth it? The answer to that is, yes they are. At least right now. On top of everything else I am trying to do, those few smokes a day (and a wonderful thing called Wellbutrin) have kept me from committing murder on numerous occasions.

I have been keeping really tight control on my sugars. Maybe a little too tight. Normally, I would want my sugars to be between 80 and 180. I have been trying to keep mine below 120. I guess it comes back to that discipline.

Most people don't understand what it means to take care of yourself when you have Juvenile Diabetes. They think all it takes is to cut out sugar, sweets, soda. God, if it were only that easy. You see, go into your kitchen, open your fridge, pull out your milk. See on the nutritional guide where it says total carbohydrates? Yep, even milk is an issue for me.

Fruit, yogurt, some veggies and even some meats are as well. It is very difficult to find anything that doesn't have carbs in it. Now, I'm not allowed to cut them from my diet completely, but I do have to account for every single one of them. There is no such thing as a free carb for me. To be honest, if any of you are trying to count "net carbs" or "digestible carbs" you are all fooling yourselves. Carbs are carbs folks. Yes, things like milk or fruit are better carbs than cake or candy, but that is because of the sugar. Carbs are carbs, no matter how creative companies get with their packaging.

Now, imagine a home where every meal is made from scratch. Where there aren't those handy little guides to tell me how much insulin I should be taking for my homemade spaghetti. It's been a bitch to keep such tight control, and this is a lifetime thing. I haven't always been good about testing, but worrying if I am taking too much or too little insulin has always been an issue.

Here's why I am so down right now.

I made a nice meal Wednesday night. Ham with a homemade glaze and a seasoned veggie medley. After Googling carb values for carrots, potatoes, horseradish and brown sugar, I gave myself what I thought was the proper amount of insulin. While eating my dinner, I could feel my sugars dropping. I had Jero grab me another piece of bread and butter, to no effect. I ate some peaches, nothing. I remember saying I was scared. I remember telling Jero that something was really wrong. Next thing I knew, I was lying in my bed with my mom hand feeding me some fruit. I had a sandwich in my hand and was refusing to eat it. I do not remember going to the bedroom. I do not remember the massive amount of applesauce I ate. I do not remember being combative about the food they were trying to feed me.

My mom and Jero saved my life that night. I have not had an insulin reaction like that since I was a very young girl. My blood sugars were apparently in the thirties for quite some time. I ended up going into work late the next day because I felt like I had been hit by a bus full of pixie sticks. My sugars were sky high and my eyes hurt along with just about everything else in my body. My stomach was rolling because I simply do not eat that way.

I still don't know where I went wrong. I still don't know how I bottomed out so fast. All I know is that I AM PISSED.

There is just no way to keep things like that from happening. It's going to happen. I'm trying to keep my sugars at a rate I would have difficulty keeping them even if I was on an insulin pump. I am so damn stressed out. I am quitting smoking, trying to lower my cholesterol, and living in a house where I have had no personal space for over two years. Supporting my mom has become so financially burdening that I never know how we are going to pay our bills let alone support my disease. The lack of privacy is hard on Jero and I. And I am angry.

I am at war with myself all day long. I am angry that nobody gets it. Angry that after the last time I mentioned my eye surgery I got responses about "asking for help" and "doing this to myself". Angry that my diabetes takes over six thousand dollars a year just to maintain WITH INSURANCE. Angry that I can't find support out there because I have a job. Angry that my home isn't my home and nobody seems to understand that I just want some time to myself. Angry that I have to postpone our wedding for an unknown amount of time. Angry that I have to apply for service after service with the goal of being denied so that I can qualify to have my next eye surgery paid for. All of that anger? Well, it leads to guilt. The guilt? It goes straight to depression.

The depression makes me angry. It's a vicious cycle and I am just so overwhelmed.

I think some of that anger has come from fear. When I was young, those lows never really worried me, they were just part of being diabetic. Just the normal response of my body to swimming, P.E., riding my bike, my dad's death, my SATs. My body has never responded well to stress. It's just...normal. But that night scared the shit out of me. I find myself so insulin shy that the easiest response is to just not eat. But I have to eat, and I am, but I'm all jumpy, which leads to the anger, guilt and depression.

I love my mom, I don't want to feel so resentful.

There is another side to that though. It's the side that wonders how a woman can see what this disease has done to me since I was a baby and still eat her way into it herself. People make jokes all the time, or lightly say, "I'm sure I'm pre-diabetic", and it infuriates me. It feels like a personal bitch slap. Like, oh, this disease is no big deal, I'll just eat another cookie, la di da. So, the resentment isn't just about my lack of personal space, or the fact that I can't just be by myself for a little while, it is also about her and TOO MANY OTHERS choosing to have a disease I have been waiting 30 years for a cure for.

Okay, I have vented and wasted your time for too long and I don't really feel any better. I know the comment I made about type 2 diabetics is going to get some nasty feedback. I do know that not all type 2 diabetics choose this or have done this to themselves, BUT many of them do and have. That is just the plain truth, and if I have offended you, well, I'm not sorry one bit. If you have the rare type of Type 2 Diabetes that was not caused by poor diet and exercise, I was not talking about you so get your panties of that wad and relax. Stress isn't good for us remember?

If you ARE one of those diabetics who continues to do this to yourself, do me a favor and hand over your health insurance to someone with cancer, Parkinson's, MS or one of the million real chronic illnesses that are causing people to go bankrupt all over the country. Because I honestly feel that the studies into your type of Diabetes are just as silly as the ones focusing on male pattern baldness.

I am now stepping off my soap box to go prepare my bucket for cleaning the eggs off my car that are bound to be there tomorrow.

Hug those babies, eat a pickle (they are a diabetic free food) and don't hate me forever.

*Come on fellow nerds, that was one SWEET** Star Trek reference.

**Pardon my pun.

Peculiar, Awkward and Crick Are Not Real

I don't think my body knows how to handle this day. It's all like, "hey, Brain, dude what do I do?" And Brain replies, "I don't know dude, but you're freaking me out!"

I'm not sure why both my body and my brain sound like surfers.

Today was emotional to say the least, and to put the icing on the cake, I have consumed far more sugar than a type 1 Diabetic should ever consume...hahaha...which is exactly like putting icing on the cake! Don't worry, I've compensated with insulin, but that doesn't mean it didn't still fuck me up a little.

I was sad when I got to work, then two things happened simultaneously to make me feel like the universe was sending me the message that it would just be best if I crawled into a bunker for a few years, just until the dust settles. I actually cried at work about nothing work related.

I'm sure that was loads of awkward for my two coworkers.

They were having a bake sale at the bank, and I hadn't eaten breakfast yet, so I bought fudge. Now, when I bought said fudge (which had nuts yet was going to help me feel less so) I spent my laundry money on what I thought would be MINE! But then my coworker also bought treats with the intent to share, and not sharing my fudge when she is sharing her cookies and banana bread is just plain douche-y. Especially when she has told me about her displeasure and financial hardships because I am getting mondo hours while our boss is away and she is not. So, I shared my fudge. Boo. But I got to also eat cookies and banana bread. Yay! Which was my breakfast. Yayboo?

When lunch rolled around I ate my left overs (lasagna and bread) also carbs, and between breakfast and lunch there was one more piece of fudge, then another after lunch, then some carrot cake when I got home.

I feel a little like that girl from The Ring who is really far away one moment and then really close the next.

Why did I write that? Now I feel like that AND I'm scared.

AND I'M HOME ALONE!

Why did I just write that? Now every Tom, Dick and Harry (which all sound like violent sex offenders to me) will know I'm home alone! Listen up, sex offenders, I have a very large dog trained to attack the nutsack of any would be attackers!

So, I've been pacing my apartment trying to figure out what to write about, but coming up with only really strange things.

Such as:

No one's feet have ever been as cold as mine are right now. Which is a blatant lie. Some poor schmuck climbing Everest is probably losing toes as we speak to the cold. Which just makes me a giant sack of crap for thinking I have it worse than that unfortunate mountain climbing soul.

Why is it ten lords a-leaping? Why are those lords leaping? Are they leaping onto their horses to go rob their tenants of their hard earned money? Why do the tenants take that shit? Why don't they band together and send that leaping lord running for the hills, then form a co-op and all take turns being lord? That's what I would have done. Even in the seventeenth century I would have been a hippie. When was Patchuli "invented"? Hopefully long after that, because that particular fragrance is the one thing keeping me from being an all out hippie. That and I feel cleaner when I shave.

Where did the term yuppie come from? To me it sounds better suited to a very agreeable hillbilly and/or pound puppy.

How long does sugar make you feel like this? I should really know the answer to that particular conundrum, being all Diabetic for nearly three decades. My blood sugar is not high, but I feel peculiar.

Peculiar is a good word, I should use it more often. Does it make me sound peculiar when I peculiarly use the word peculiar in peculiar sentences? Now I don't think it's even a real word. Like awkward and crick. Like that time I wrote an ex-boyfriend's name so many times on the envelope to his birthday card that by the end I was convinced I had spelled it wrong from the start. I had to look at a card he gave me to even start believing Todd was spelled with two ds. And even then, there was a small part of me that thought he may have spelled it wrong to be funny because EVERYONE knows you spell Todd with one d.

Everyone but me.

Why exactly do we teach our children that it is okay to commit breaking and entering if you bring presents? And sometimes it doesn't even have to be a real present. Really, Santa, an orange in my stocking? If I had been a little less unicorns and rainbows as a child I think I would have thought he was just casing the joint AND he would know about all the cool stuff I just got! Oh, he's a patient one, that Claus, biding his time over all these years. But for what? I would have thought he'd strike while the iron was hot that one year I got the Strawberry Shortcake castle. Poor, stupid Santa, it's never going to get any better than that.

Yeah, so that's where my brain is, if you can figure out exactly where that is, you will be one step ahead of me and my body. Maybe he's out catching a gnarly wave.