The feeling is mutual - Diabetes hates me. While Diabetes' apparent disdain for me seems to be more of a personal issue, my feelings today towards Diabetes are mainly a snowball effect of the events of this weekend. Saturday was WOW! A Day for Macon, Wesleyan's big bi-annual volunteering event. I was placed on the Campus Cleanup team, which I did not mind because I volunteered and was willing to work where they placed me. However, as I saw other girls go off to volunteer for needy children and the elderly, I couldn't help but have a sinking feeling that my volunteering project was a very bad match for me, 1. Because I had rarely done manual labor in my life, and 2. I knew 4 hours outside was just a low blood sugar waiting to happen. But what's a girl to do? It was a beautiful day, the sun had come out after several days of rain, and I was glad that at least my project involved being outside. It was one of those days that would have been a waste to spend indoors.
We first spread out pine straw underneath the trees out by the art building, then pruned them. Then we walked over to the lake and started weeding mimosa and scraping old paint off of the bridge. It was around 11 when I sat down to take a break and started feeling a little shaky. "Are you okay?" Jenna asked. "Be right back. I need to check my blood sugar," I told her. 3 minutes later a 45 stared back at me on the screen. Oh crap, I muttered. It was as if the symptoms had just waiting behind closed doors, waiting for the cue of seeing my BG number on the screen before screaming, "OH HEY. LOOKIE HERE. LOW BLOOD SUGAR" in flashing lights. It felt like death. I stared down at the infinitesimal 4 blood glucose tablets that I had placed in my bag this morning. Why, oh why hadn't I packed more? My blood sugar was dropping rapidly and I realized what a stupid error it had been to give myself Novolog in the arm this morning. One of the obscure rules of Diabetes: If you know you'll be using the body part a lot in the coming hours, don't inject yourself there or the insulin will absorb too quickly and give you low blood sugar. Scraping paint and pulling up stubborn weeds certainly hadn't done me a favor this morning.
I frantically opened the packet of glucose tabs (orange flavored - so not my favorite), and chewed them down. It did little to help though. I shook from the low, overwhelmed by how powerful it was. "I need food," I told our volunteer leader. She looked at me. "Are you alright?" She asked. I swallowed. "My blood sugar is 45." She blinked. "Are you going to be okay? I don't want you to pass out on the way to the cafeteria or anything." I laughed weakly. "I'll be okay," I told her. I think, My thoughts echoed. This low was bad, really bad. "I just need some food. Then I'll come back." "I think you're done," she said. "You did a good job. Didn't she do a good job?" she asked the other girls, who had now gathered around. "But -" I started to say. "I volunteered, I don't want to bail or leave early or --" "I think you're done," she repeated.
I was sick. And I would always be sick. Things weren't the same for me anymore, I remembered. But it wasn't right. I was slacking. Diabetes shouldn't have to be an excuse for me, a reason for my not being able to work as hard as other people. I appreciated her being understanding, I really did. But I was mad at Diabetes for doing this to me. For making things so complicated. 6 months ago I would've been just fine, working the whole 4 hours like everyone else, doing hard work. Nothing to balk at. But the fact that I even had to consider what 4 hours of work would do to my health frustrated me. I just wanted to be carefree about my health like I used to be able to. Be able to take it for granted because I was perfectly fine and there was no reason in the world to think otherwise. Now things are so different. I might talk about Diabetes a lot to people, but honestly, it's just because it plays such a big part in my life now. Like my shadow, it follows me everywhere. And unlike Peter Pan, I cannot lose my shadow. We are stuck for life. Prepare for this next major cliche: Deep down, truth is I really just want to be like every one else. I don't want Diabetes to be an excuse. I want to be able to work as hard and do as much as normal people. I don't want Diabetes to interfere with my life. I don't want Diabetes to be a reason for people to pity me, a reason for people to say or think, "Oh, that poor thing. Take it easy on her." I want people to see me and think, "Wow. Despite her illness, look at all that she has overcome." I don't need easy, but I do wish for normalcy. I don't want pity, I just want people to listen, to understand. That's why I'm writing this blog. I want people to read this and know what it's really like. No misconceptions, no misinformation. Truth. This is life with a chronic illness.
I am in a bad mood today though. My endocrinologist told me once when I was first diagnosed, "Diabetes doesn't have to limit you. Things may be harder for you, but they won't be impossible. You can do anything that a person without Diabetes can." But I don't feel like that right now. I remember envying how put together she seemed, thinking that I could never be like that. Thinking this illness would own me and had destroyed all of my dreams. I don't feel quite that dramatic now after adjusting to my life anew, but I am so tired of this fight and knowing that life will always be this uphill battle, discourages me at times. Life is never easy, but life with Diabetes certainly doesn't help make it any less difficult.
To top it all off, my blood sugars have been absolutely dismal the past few days. It seems my insulin needs have upped themselves again. I resolved to myself at this end of the week, "Enough goofing around, time to step it up with my treatment." Lots of water, low carb foods, Novolog at every meal for even small amounts of carbs. Last night my BG was over 350 where it should not have been. I gave myself Novolog for it right away but woke up at 262. Bolused for breakfast this morning only to find 372 two hours later. With near tears in my eyes I angrily grabbed my insulin pen and stabbed myself in front of everyone in Orgo.
"I'm okay..." I told myself, walking out of class later. And then I broke down on the inside, strings of saddening thoughts filling my mind. "I'm not okay." I said to myself angrily. "I'm sick. How in the hell is that okay? How will that ever be okay? Why do I have to deal with this, why is everything so complicated now?" I kicked the stones on the ground as I rushed angrily back to my dorm, needing to be alone. I ate lunch in silence that afternoon and gave myself 2 units of insulin. I went to Spanish and felt shaky. I emerged with a BG of 55. I ran into the cafeteria diner, grabbed an apple, and ran outside to eat it. I took a bit and spit it out. It was imperfect on the inside, diseased, though you could never tell by looking on the outside.
Just like me.
I ran back in, selected an apple more carefully this time, and collapsed in a shaking, sweaty heap on the sofa outside the Hurdle Cafe. Tears fell down my face as I ate the apple, trying to recover, trying to feel better. I couldn't stand this seesaw, this, "So, will it be a High or Low this time?" Why not just normal? Why was it seemingly always one extreme or the other lately?
Life with a chronic illness is overwhelming on days like this. And it makes me so selfish. I hate to succumb to pity, but sometimes I just get so upset that it's all I can do for the time being. I think, at least with some other diseases, there is hope of a cure. I may die, but there is a chance that I will not, that I will walk away a survivor. But instead I sit here on the sidelines and watch as other, more "popular" illnesses fill the spotlight. I swear, diseases are as bad as the media is sometimes. Everyone cares about the newest, most heartrendingly sad disease stories. Aids, Cancer, Breast Cancer - things that are worth fundraising for, raising awareness for. But what about other, overlooked diseases? Every day in America, 11 people die from Asthma. Diabetes is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Rheumatoid arthritis, the most crippling form of arthritis, affects approximately 1.3 million Americans and two to three times more women than men. Over 300,000 children are afflicted with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis before the age of 16. But who cries for them? Far fewer than should. A cure for Type 1 Diabetes is 10, 20, 50 years down the road. There are no survivors of Diabetes, just troopers. It is a game to see how long we can live like this. I am stuck in limbo now, with an illness that I can still stay alive with - but only with a lifetime of treatment that will never truly be a cure. I spend every day yearning for a cure but so afraid to hope in case I end up disappointed. I know that all of this is an impossibly selfish thing to write, to think. I would gladly take Diabetes and be grateful over handful of worse illnesses that other people have. But Diabetes is what I have, and judge me or not, sometimes this is what I cannot help but feel.
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