Peanut Butter Fried Rice, Spicy Kelp... This Must Be the Wesleyan College Apartments!

My experience at Wesleyan this week has been so far nothing short of great. I love being back - I like the routine, the endless lists of things to do, the feeling of getting things done. I love living in the apartments with my two apartment-mates, Crystal and Dingxiu. Crystal is from Columbus, GA and Dingxiu is from China, studying at Wesleyan as an international student. Over the last few days I've become so comfortable with these group of girls. We hang out and cook dinner together, play card games or listen to music. We have long talks about faith, Dingxiu's experience in China, and the similarities Crystal and I both share.

Getting to know Dingxiu in particular has been a huge learning experience. I met Dingxiu last year, seeing her walking around campus occasionally, in the dining hall, or in Hightower, the Hall we both had dorms in. Crystal and I had decided in early April that we would both apply for the apartments together, having no one else to choose (most people had already picked their apartment-mates long in advance!) We wanted to pick at least one other person, though, because if you're going to be living with three of four girls for a year, it helps to know who. I was talking to Dingxiu one day in the dining hall, and happened to mention our dilemma.
"We are rooming in the apartments next year but haven't found anyone else to live with us yet! Would you like to live in the apartments with us, maybe?" I asked her, thinking of Dingxiu as an incredibly nice girl and feeling happy to extend an invitation to her. A few days later, Dingxiu agreed, and we turned in our paperwork. We were going to live in the apartments!

Last night Dingxiu cooked us a real Chinese Dinner. She made a yummy soup with chicken, ginger, onion, mushrooms, and several other ingredients. She also brought out packets of spicy kelp and sesame seeds to adorn our rice. Crystal and I attempted to fry rice in a strange recipe calling for... peanut butter.
"I've seen it done at a restaurant before,"
Crystal told me.
I stared at the jar skeptically - "Are you sure you don't just want to use Soy Sauce?" I asked.
About 20 intense minutes later of putting together ingredients so quickly it'd make a chem major sweat, we had fried rice. Crystal gave me the first taste.
"Do you think it needs more salt?"
Crystal added salt, and we tried again.
"This is delicious!" We both agreed. No lie, the peanut butter fried rice was one of the best fried rice meals I've ever had.

We got pillows and sat around the coffee table on the floor, because we didn't have a table, but we were all comfortable. Music was playing on the CD player, and Crystal got up to make tea. "Do you want any tea, Rita? (Dingxiu's english name). "No, I drink the soup!" She told us, and we laughed. How practical that was!

I enjoyed talking with the girls. Most of all, I loved the opportunity to hear about China from a girl that had lived their all her life. It was incredible.

"What kind of strange foods do you eat?"

"Cow tongue, monkey brains, jellyfish..."

"Is there a lot of pollution?"

"My father can't fish in the river at all anymore, because sometimes the fish just float to the water and die."

"Is American Chinese Food like real Chinese Food at all?"

"NO!"

While I fought back the growing burning sensation caused by the spicy kelp in my mouth, we kept the conversation going between us. Dingxiu told us she had never seen a dishwasher before, and thought that it was a strange American quirk for us to put dirty dishes in there... and leave them!
When I got out my Novolog to bolus for the rice, Dingxiu cried out, "Oh no! Are you okay?!"
I laughed a little, and tried to explain in as simple terms as I could how my body did not use sugar properly, which is why I had to take shots.

Dingxiu told us all about New Year in China, and the strange Chinese calendar in which dates change every year - even your birthday! We told her about our American traditions - Christmas and Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny.
"Americans live in storybook!" She laughed and told us.
"Some of us still do," I winked. (I do princess parties for a living).

The most incredible thing of all to me was, however, that Dingxiu had never seen a Bible or heard of Jesus Christ. It just really opened my eyes - here I am, raised Christian, in a way taking that fact for granted, and here is Dingxiu, living in our apartment because of a whim I had to ask the sweet Wesleyan student to live with us. Perhaps this was a chance for both Crystal and I to share to gospel, the good news of Christ. It was amazing that in today's day and age, with all our communication, that here was someone who didn't even know what Christianity was. That never really comes to your mind often, because as an American, I think we tend to assume that it's so easy for every kind of news to spread. And we take for granted the fact that we really can observe a religion freely and without persecution. And so Crystal gave Dingxiu a Bible, and advised her to start reading the gospel of John. I really hope that perhaps one day, we can all sit down and talk about the gospel together, and truly share the good news to someone without Christ.

I was so happy that Dingxiu was living with us, and happy that Crystal, who is quickly become one of my good friends, was there too.

What an exciting week this has turned out to be - and hopefully an even more exciting year!

51.

Junior Year!

Sunday the Wesleyan College move-in fiasco began for the second time.

Last year was a nightmare - it went kind of like this:

lowbloodsugar

lowbloodsugar

eat90gramsofcarbs

bloodsugarisstill30

lowbloodsugar

nighttimelowbloodsugar

morninglowbloodsugar

lowbloodsugar

for consecutive weeks straight, leaving me reeling and my newly-christened diabetic self (4/3/11) feeling helpless and unsure of what to do. 

This year left me thinking,

"Why didn't I take a lesson from last year?"

I have a ton of stuff. This year I live in the apartments - third floor landing - and enlisted the help of 3 boys (Josh, Josh's Brother, Josh's Best Friend) - to move the heavy stuff.

Even with the lighter stuff, though, the workout was substantial. 

Huffing and panting, we went to DQ to cool off and get some ice cream. I had a small cone and then had a few bites of Josh's Georgia Mud Fudge Blizzard - it was a lot of sweetness for me, and I bolused well for it, wanting to avoid a spike later. I felt fine, except later that night I felt hot and sweaty... the shakes began...

I tested my Blood Sugar. 

51.

So I ate a 30 gram-carb granola bar my apartment-mate, Crystal, gave me.

I carried on unpacking, feeling pretty okay.

As I started making my bed, I started feeling hot again. A bead of sweat dripped down my forehead. I groaned as I wiped the sweat away, knowing what was coming on. I tested again. 68. Still low? Seriously? I ate the other half of the granola bar (30 grams), as well as an additional 30-carbs worth of snacks before bed.

I went to sleep feeling assured that my blood sugar was nice and through the roofs.

I woke up at 7:30 that next morning, which was unusual considering I'd gone to sleep past 2. I curled my toes and crossed my feet luxuriously, taking in my new surroundings - although still messy, the apartment was coming together nicely, and I sure did love my new room better than the dorms!

I woke up and yawned a little. What to do? 

I padded out into the kitchen. Crystal was still asleep, and I should have been, but I had work to do! 

I started working again, cleaning and unpacking...

Soon I felt weak and shaky.

O.M.G., I thought, not again. You've got to be kidding me! 

I had vague flashbacks of my flashing 30's and 40's last year and the nightmare it was to understand the concept of a.) delayed hypoglycemia (work out (in this case, move in), and get low blood sugar up to 10 hours later - hence nighttime lows) and b.) reducing my insulin intake based on the level of my activities. I went through so many snacks during that time. 

I tested while sitting on the floor, and waited for the reading.

51.

... wasn't that my Blood Sugar last night?

I laughed a little, then took a shaky breath and got to business digging a snack out of my bag and eating 26 grams of carbs. That should do it. 

For lunch I was in a rush to get to my Physical Therapy Internship - 10 minutes to eat - I had salad and literally no time to bolus, so I ate and was off. I was starved after interning, and had a 12 g carb rice cake before rushing back to campus for my work study meeting. Since I couldn't test at lunch, I tested there - 200, okay, that meant 2 units of Novo ( - 80 should give me a BG of 120). 

Crystal and I went shopping for apartment supplies later, and we had oatmeal cream pies (28 carbs) for a snack, which was a perfect bolus - 4 units of Novo (each unit covers 7 carbs). So I should have been perfect, right?

We got home from shopping and I set down my purse. I had "hummingbird heartbeat" as I call it, as my heartbeats tend to become fast, tiny, spaced together beats when a low starts coming on, or has already hit and I'm just then becoming aware of it. I wondered vaguely if my sugars were low. Crystal found me later in my room laying on the rug, fanning myself. I knew I was low.

Crystal got out some pasta noodles and sauce, and proceeded to make dinner while I checked my BG again.

51.

UGH! Low once more! 

"It's a good thing you're making pasta!", I told Crystal.

I really couldn't wait until dinner was done, so I ate a slice of bread (11.5 carbs) while I waited, which would probably do the trick. When supper was ready, Crystal fixed us nice big bowls of pasta and sauce (about 60 g of carbs total). I hadn't had pasta since before I was Diabetic, if you can believe it. Crystal and I joked it was both a celebratory first apartment meal as well as a "first" pasta meal for me. What had my life come to? Living on the wild side meant... eating pasta???

Perhaps against what was my better judgement (or so my Diabetic mind thought), I didn't bolus for a carb of it. My sugars were going to be so high....

About 2 hours passed. It was late as it was - we had ate around 9, and now it was a bit past 11. 

And yet...

I still felt hot.

I still felt shaky.

There is NO freaking way this time. NO WAY! I just ate pasta! Not to mention I had done an UNHEARD OF thing for a Diabetic - I hadn't even bolused for the pasta. That was like Diabetic blasphemy, let me tell you.

The test confirmed my fears a moment later though - I was low.

But not just low - I was

51.

Again! I couldn't even believe it! What were the chances?

I ate a bag of popcorn then, hoping that would up my sugars for the night. 

Today my sugars finally stabilized, starting out low at a 59 but remaining in the mid-100's today. I've certainly made a mental note for NEXT YEAR to BRING LOTS OF SNACKS, EAT MANY CARBS and NOT USE SO MUCH INSULIN during move in. No way am I going through this again.

The plus side?

"At least this'll make a good blog post," I told Crystal that night. "I'll call it...

51."

Gone.

I went to a funeral for the second time in my life tonight.

The first funeral I went to was for my great uncle Ben. Tonight, I went to the funeral of Joshua's great uncle Larry.

I never got to know Larry very well - but I loved him in my own way. Larry lived right across the street from the Kuckuck's back when they lived in Macon. His house was beautiful - perfectly manicured lawn, a two-story house with a huge back porch that overlooked the fish pond, and Aunt Shirley's (sp?) wonderful sweet tea, which I used to drink like water back before I was Diabetic. I remember we used to walk across the street and Uncle Larry would be in his recliner, and greet me with a smile, a hug and a kiss. He'd call me Sweet Pea, or Pretty Thing, and I'd smile in return. Larry was a sweet part of my life, and although I didn't know him as well as I might have liked, my heart is full of sorrow to know that I will never see him as I walk inside his house again.

I didn't know what to expect. This wasn't the actual funeral, per se, but it was the viewing. I have never gone to a viewing before. My Grandma Ball had died long ago, when I was only a little girl in 5th grade, and had never before dealt with loss. I have been fortunate that Grandma Ball is the only loved one I have truly yet lost. I had decided not to go to her funeral - I wanted to remember my grandma as the woman who used to mail me cookies and china dolls. Not as a woman being buried. I do not regret the decision - I was, and am at peace with the fact that I love my grandma, and I miss her as I remember she was. One day I hope to meet her again.

But I am older now. Grown-ups go to funerals. I dressed nicely tonight, and we arrived at a fancy funeral home called The Cuppola. It used to be a place where parties were held, before it was a funeral home.
Family from all over Georgia - and from beyond - was there. There must have been hundreds of people there to pay their final respects to the renowned Larry Justice, whom I-475 is named for (Larry Justice Highway). I mingled by Joshua's side, talking with friends and family whom I hadn't seen in months, weeks or years.

It wasn't until we were about to leave for dinner that I wandered into a side room with lots of flowers. I peeked behind a guest and saw a pale white hand - this was the room where the casket was. I'd had no idea. I had never seen a dead body in real life before. I didn't know if I wanted to.

Seeing a dead body used to be something I feared - I worried that I would be scared, and have nightmares. I felt strangely at peace though, as I approached the casket and moved closer. I maintained my distance, but I was only about a foot, maybe two, away. Maybe it was because I had known Larry, that I remembered the warm feel of his hands, and the way his face glowed with a warm smile. I was not scared. But I was suddenly overcome with a sense of sadness. This wasn't Larry - this was only a shell of what he used to be. Larry was gone, I believe with our father in heaven, perhaps watching over me at that moment. And the fact that he appeared so gone made me want to burst into tears - he was gone, and he was never coming back. I couldn't believe it - never in my life had I seen such a complete and total absence of life.
People say the dead appear as if they are sleeping, but I believe they are wrong. He didn't look like he was sleeping. He looked...absent. He looked utterly, inevitably gone. I was overwhelmed. Like a whisper, life is gone, and when it is, on this Earth, nothing is left in its place.

I was awestruck by the realization of how fragile life really was. Our body is truly but a shell - our us, the real of essence of who we are, the thing that puts the sparkle in our eye and the rosiness in our cheeks, is truly something different, something separate, from our physical selves. When we see people alive and living, we perhaps take this for granted, but it's completely different when you see someone without their essence, without whatever it is that makes them alive. It is like seeing all your life in color and suddenly waking up to vision in black and white, or living your life without Diabetes and suddenly having to give shots at every meal. The difference is startling, so noticeable.

If I never truly believed it before tonight, I believe it now - this life is only a fraction of the existence that we are given. We are here for but a moment, and then suddenly, we are gone.

Larry Justice is gone on Earth, but I know that somewhere, Larry - the one we all know, that I know, and love - still lives elsewhere. I believe without a doubt in heaven, and I believe he is there. And one day, I'll be gone too - not today, and certainly not last April of 2011 - but one day, the day will come and I will meet him and my grandma again. I am not afraid.

Would You Like a Side of Guilt With That Candy Bar?

Guilt.

It's perhaps an unlikely thing that you would think Diabetes makes me feel - but it's the one thing I find myself feeling most.

Numbers that read higher than they should be, a slice of frosting-laden birthday cake, even going out to eat.
My numbers were great in Florida, but I am struggling a little while getting back in the swing of things in Georgia. My sugars are higher than I'd like from late night baking sessions, going out to eat, and entertaining at parties with little time to bolus or snack quickly in between. Would a pump make life easier? I don't know - I won't until I figure out what happens with insurance and where I'll be standing in regards to how I'll pay for insulin. Apply for Georgia Medicaid and hopefully make it in? I'll have to give up my Florida citizenship, but for insulin, it might be worth it - I hope to go to Grad School here anyways. Either way, until the issue gets solidified, on insulin shots I will stay.

I am frustrated sometimes, because my higher sugars have led to more shots throughout the day and you can see visible pinpricks and tiny traces of bruises. There's only so much skin you can find to inject into. I do not like feeling bad for eating anything but eggs in the morning, I do not enjoy worrying about what the bite of brownie batter will do to my BG, and I hate eating dinner with everyone but having to avoid most of it because I don't know the carb count. It sucks. I wish I was normal. I hate seeing my sugars high. I know it can get better, but the effort is hard. I don't want to control my food habits like a perfect angel. I want to have a bite here, a taste there, a chip here, maybe half a cookie whenever. I cannot. My sugars require constant maintenance and slacking for even just a bit always seems to send them soaring back up.

Hopefully my sugars will be more controlled once school starts back up. I'll be more active, and hopefully be eating more healthy. No unhealthy snacking for me - I'll have a carefully stocked kitchen and try to eat well in the dining hall.

I just wish it was by choice, and not by mixed feelings of guilt and obligation.