Being Diabetic

I don't think I'm too much of a crybaby when it comes to my disease.
It exists and I deal. But when I read Emily Minor's column about her
challenge with it, by the end I found myself in tears. I'm not much of
a "why me" person, nor am I an "It won't happen to me" person, but
there was something about reading her words, her struggle with it, her
description of what it's like. I never realized I felt a bit alone
until I read that and felt I wasn't.

Emily is a fantastic writer at our paper and an even better person, as
far as I can tell. When I run into her on rare occasions, we chat
about things. How have my sugars been? How's that new med your doc put
you on? It's nice to have someone around who knows the secret
handshake - even if the club members have poor immune systems.

I have never had any emergencies. Ironically, the closest I came was a
few weeks ago when I had dinner and felt woozy an hour later. I
checked my sugars and they were a little low. No big deal, normally,
but if I was to start barfing and my sugars would continue to drop,
I'd have no way of keeping my sugars in a good range, considering I
couldn't keep anything down. Needing to avoid such situations is part
of the reason I get a flu shot every year.  That and the fact that the
flu can kill someone with the 'betes. I called Rachel and asked if she
wouldn't mind hanging out, just until I could slowly drink juice and
get my sugars in a reasonable range (I had been unable for the hour
before calling her, to get them up). So, she hung-out and watched my
TV while I lay in bed. By midnight I was good and when I came into the
living room to let her know we would not need to go to the hospital,
she said, "Yeah, your color is MUCH better. You had no color in your
face before."

It's true. When I go severely hypoglycemic, I tend to avoid any
mirrors - they give me an idea of what I'd look like if I were dead.

Back to Emily's column though. She mentioned that she had viral
meningitis and two years later she was diagnosed. Textbook case. It
was at this point I began to bawl. I had always known that what did it
for me was probably that horrid flu I had my sophomore year in
college, the one with the 104 degree temperature and the near
passing-out at the university health center, but I never dwelled on
what if, even if it did occur to me, which it did. Suddenly, it hits
me...holy shit. My life could be completely different had I only
gotten one measly flu shot that year.

One shot. That's it.

One shot and I could eat whatever I want without giving myself
insulin. One shot and I could go for a bike ride without checking my
sugars and having to wait with a glass of juice for them to rise if
they were too low to work-out (which is exactly what I had to do
tonight), one shot and I'd have a shitload more money because I'd
never have to buy all the pharmaceuticals I need, or visit an
endocrinologist every three months, the dentist twice a year
religiously, they eye doctor yearly, etc. But being diagnosed has
effected who I am as a person. At least, I think it has. I can
certainly relate to others who deal with things out of their control
better than I would have had I not been diagnosed. Maybe I'd be
sympathetic anyway, but I'd like to think there's some silver lining.

Now, being type 1 means you have the genetics to be susceptible to the
condition, so I may have been diagnosed some other time, after some
other sickness.

The ironic thing is that since being diagnosed ten years ago, I've
never gotten the flu because I've always gotten the flu shot annually.