You Can Pick Your Battles, But Not Your Genetics. (This Title Seems Kind of Funny and Semi-Relevant).

My Genetics Exam Thursday went a lot like this:

I stayed up countless nights, countless weekdays, mashed in study time after work, poured over powerpoints and generally worked my Senior butt off, to study for my Genetics Exam.

Thursday I walked in to the lab. I had my pencil, glucometer and snack by my side. I was ready! I was gonna pass! My grade was not going to be shredded by Professor Schroeder.

The tests were distributed. I glanced at the exam and wrote my name on top. Read the first question. Read the second. I chewed my eraser gently. Scratched my head for a second. The clock ticked by. I removed my jacket. Was it hot in here?

I called an answer to mind, chased after the thought for a bit, tried it on for size, and then... my mind let it slip. I tried again. Failed. My thoughts were like wet soap: and the harder I tried to hold on, the faster they slipped out of my grasp. 

I knew what was coming. I checked my sugar and it was 60. Ok, not so low, but not high enough that my brain could focus. I could only answer the easy questions, the ones that skimmed the information off the top layer of my memory, not the ones that required me to dig closer down to the bottom. I was frustrated. I literally could not focus, could not think: lows rob you of that ability. 

30 minutes passed. The first granola bar had only kept me level at 60; I ate another. I could be mad at the fact that I had had to eat 3 granola bars that afternoon, which for me was too much. I could panic, but instead I told myself, stay calm: this will pass. I knew the answers - my brain simply needed sugar in order to process and retrieve them.

I finally did climb back up the blood sugar ladder, and the answers came, like you begin to feel hot water gradually pouring out from a faucet that starts out all cold. 

I wasn't mad, not this time. Just tired of my body, and wanting to pass my genetics exam so that I could go home and relax. 

Sometimes in the fight with Diabetes, you simply have to pick your battles. 

A Silver Lining with a Side of Insulin

I had something incredible happen to me last week. I've been busy with class and not had time to blog about it, but all week I carried it around with me in my mind, because small little breadcrumbs of Diabetic-happiness like these come not often enough and too far in between.

It goes like this:

At Wesleyan College, I work in the office of Admissions.

I.Love.Admissions.

I ended up Work-Studying there by chance, because one day my first year I had stopped by the office of one of the faculty and was casually mentioning that I hadn't found a work study job yet. "Well, admissions still needs student workers!" said Amy, one of the Directors of Admissions at, yep, you guessed it - Wesleyan. Still a rather shy, quiet and un-forward freshman/sophomore/Junior (I dual enrolled for two years and didn't really know what I was), I went right up to admissions, applied, stumbled through a slightly awkward interview, and was officially an employed work study student. Every year, students have the opportunity to pick wherever on campus they want to work, provided there are openings - I've never changed where I work, because I couldn't picture working anywhere else.

Admissions is work - any one that goes to any college, I imagine, will tell you that it's not just sitting at a desk, like some work study jobs. I stuff envelopes - I enter data for hours at a time - I handle random drop-ins and give tours and sell the school and handle the phone and print 25,000 postcards to mail out and plan events and arrange flowers and write letters and peel oranges and diagnose beta fish on the fly. It's organized chaos, but mostly a bunch of chaos. Someone once told me Admissions is like the MacGyver of colleges, and it's true. We do it all. It's exciting, it's funny, is frustrating, it's hectic. But I love the work, and it's so fulfilling because I get to outreach to incoming students and talk about my school and be social and creative at every opportunity. I can't wear jeans and I hate giving surprise tours in heals in the cold, and stuffing 10,000 envelopes according to each specific name really bites it, but those are small matters compared to the ultimate love of my job that I feel, and the appreciation I feel for all of the wonderful counselors and workers in admissions and students that work with me. No one would believe me if I described all of the funny conversations we've had, or the things we've laughed over. In the course of 2.5 years, I have changed from this awkward, shy whatever-class-level-I-am, to a slightly less awkward (but still awkward sometimes!), less shy kind of grown up who is about to go to graduate school if someone decides to accept me. I can give tours without blinking. I can talk on the phone confidently. I can deal with people. And hey, I even own more than one pair of slacks and dress shoes, now. (Florida flip flops every day as I grew up with just don't cut it.)

And so I was at work last Monday, utilizing all of these skills I claim to have acquired over the last few years, when the phone rings. Expecting an ordinary phone call from an applicant or perhaps someone needing to be transferred to another department - God forbid it's a male asking about his transcript (Wesleyan is an all women's college) or someone calling for information about Wesleyan University - I answer.
"Wesleyan College, how can I help you?"
A young woman answers. She's clearly an applicant, and she tells me that she is in the process of applying and that Wesleyan is her first choice college. That's always an exciting thing to hear! She has a few questions about when she should pay the deposit and I answer, telling her that the earlier you pay the deposit, the earlier you also get to choose which dorm room you would like.
She hesitates. "Well... do you have to live on campus?"
I explain to her that Wesleyan is a residential campus so that, yes, if you do not have parents or guardians within 25 miles of the school, that you had to live in campus.
She goes on. "I'm just worried," she tells me. "About living on campus and going to college. You see... I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes last October."

My professional veneer immediately falls away as I'm jolted from worker mode to ... well, myself. Without hesitation I reply, startled, "No way. I'm Type 1, too!" I was so startled and excited I could practically have jumped out of my seat. "I was Diagnosed the April before coming to Wesleyan. It's hard..."

We jumped immediately into conversation. I had never met this girl, and yet the connection I felt with her was one that I felt talking to all Type 1's - understanding. Sympathy. Knowledge. We know the intricacies of Diabetes that no one without Diabetes can ever understand. And we support each other. Throughout my walk with Diabetes, I have never had the opportunity to talk with many Type 1's. I met that man in the card shop in Savannah - which was amazing - I've met Type 2's, I've talked with Type 1's over email correspondence, Facebook, groups, blogs, etc. And that's a valuable source and priceless link to others who I can vent to and ask questions and who know how I feel.
Never had I talked to someone who had had Diabetes for less time than me. And aside from the instant connection of knowing inherently what many of this girl's struggles and challenges were, it was nice to be able to help her, or try to, anyways. She was interested in knowing if anything was going on for Diabetes month. I told her to check out some awesome Diabetes blogs online, told her about some Diabetes summer camps she could volunteer for, and told her about JDRF's website and all of the events they advertise, such as walks for Diabetes. I told her to look on Facebook for support groups. I told her that life with Type 1 at college was hard - but that professors were understanding, and that your friends could be a powerful support group for you. That your roommate could make sure to know the signs of a low and watch out for you. That you could educate people so that they would have your back. I told her that blogging was a powerful way to cope and spread awareness, if she liked to write. We sympathized with each other, exclaimed at how hard Diabetes could be, and how few people without it understood. I told her the same advice my dietician had told me all those years ago - that Diabetes is going to make things harder for you. Sometimes a lot harder. But it doesn't have to limit you.
It was amazing.

And a good feeling too - maybe this conversation was a way bigger deal to me than it was to her. Maybe she went on with her life and it faded out of her mind. But maybe, I like to think, maybe this girl rushed to excitedly tell her mom that she had called Wesleyan with a question and the person that answered the phone was Type 1 just like her, out of all of the people that could have answered the phone that day. Maybe it touched her life in a small way just like it touched mine. When I got off the phone, I excitedly told Mary Ann and Amy, who worked in Admissions. Mary Ann thought it was amazing coincidence too. I told my friends - I told my family - I totally nerded out about it and made a way bigger deal out of it than most people ever would.

Because every once in a while, you get those breadcrumbs, like meeting men with insulin pumps at card shops in Savannah and receiving phone calls from Type 1 Diabetics at work. Every moment like that is special, because every moment that your life is touched in that way - where you find someone that understands - or someone asks a knowledgeable question - adds a silver lining to the disease you suffer with each day. And it makes all the difference.

Ringing in World Diabetes Day With a.... Low?

Hypoglycemia: it's probably one of the biggest things that I write about on this blog. Naturally - it's one of the biggest side effects of being on insulin. One of the worst feelings in the world. Each low feels different, every experience unlike the one before: sometimes I don't feel them at all. I'll casually test, see a 50 and say, "Oh, wow, I'm low. I don't feel bad at all," and casually saunter to the kitchen or wherever to grab a snack. Others, I'll be in the middle of Walmart, feel low and have to start eating something out of my cart because I'm out of snacks. Sometimes a little girl will look at her mom and whisper, "Is she supposed to be doing that?" Confused, because lows are those sinister, invisible monsters that sneak up on you and rob you of the right to control your own body movements. Or think properly. And you feel it - but to others, you're acting funny, or thinking irrationally, or you're just plain weird, because they can't feel what you feel. When I'm low, I can't focus - even simple tasks such as trying to write something to someone have to be set down for later because the words I mean to transcribe fly right out of my head. Try as I might to catch them, they slip away, farther and farther away until they are distant echoes of my consciousness.

This low was different, too. I went to bed, as usual - I'd been low before bed (72, so not bad) so had a snack and then went off to sleep. I wake up at some time during the night undisclosed to me - I don't know the time, I don't look, I just know that it's dark and quiet and IcanfeelthatI'mlow but I do not test.

I'm tired.

I want to go back to sleep.

But... I'm low.

I should test, I mumble blearily to myself. Go... get something to eat, I will my body.
But sleep feels so good. I pull the cover up over my head and sink deeper into the pillow. Mmm, it can wait til morning, I think, irrationally. You think but it doesn't always make sense when you're low. When I'm sleepy, I think a lot of things that don't make sense, too. I roll over and doze off. Somewhere in my subconsciousness I knew, just knew that it was imperative that I wake up and go eat something. If I didn't, I could fall even lower, and then I might die.

Maybe that seems overdramatic, but when you live with Diabetes, you live on the edge of constant close calls every day. You live on the edge of panic - like walking on a cliff edge, and one stumble can topple you. I have Diabetes - I have my meter - insulin - test strips - I'm prepared. No big deal.

And then life happens.
You forget to put an extra insulin pen in your purse and you're away from home, far away, traveling for the day.
You just used your last test strip and neglected to put in extra strips in your meter bag...

You're low and in an unfamiliar place, and realize you have no snack.

Suddenly, your sense of security, which turns out to be false after all, flies out the window. You panic - you're blind - as though you're in a car behind the steering wheel and someone has covered your eyes and you can't see where you're going or where you're headed and you're confused and don't know what to do and you're powerless.

Maybe you think, "well, those are all really stupid. You shouldn't ever forget those things - they're important after all." And that's true. It is stupid. But how many times have you left the house and forgotten something? Are in a rush to get somewhere? Get lost in life? It happens to all of us yes, even Diabetics - because on top of all of the things I have to do for my normal life, my Diabetes life is there, life a separate life on top of my existing one, and I have to make time that I don't have to take care of it, too. I'm running late for class? Guess I'll have to check my sugar eat my breakfast and give insulin in the car. Need to test but I'm running late for work? Too bad. I'm low and I'm entertaining at a party - that's a fun one. Bottom line: you have to make time for Diabetes, but Diabetes doesn't make time for you. It's constant, never relenting, always there. No break. Ever.

But that's a tangent - I startle awake again, after what might have been 30 seconds or 30 minutes, for all I know. The low is humming in my consciousness still, I'm sweat-drenched, hot, my body is tensed and shaking, my limbs feel like Jello and my mind is once again blank fuzz, like static on the TV. My mind knows what I should do but doesn't want to act and my body doesn't want to listen. There's a distinct lapse between what I tell my body to do and when my body actually decides to do it, as though every movement I make is me trying to walk in the ocean near the shore against the waves, and they're pummeling me, and they're throwing me back, pushing me, further away from where I need to go, not letting me move how I want to.

But this time I roll over, out of the bed, in the dark, I don't test, I just know I'm low and need food and I stumble through the dark until I'm in the kitchen and I've grabbed a bar of ice cream and I'm eating it, and I'm low so I just want to eat the entire kitchen so I get out the chips and salsa and ketchup and I'm sitting on the floor eating because I don't have the strength to stand myself up and ---

This is what my life has come to, I think, in my bitter, cranky and clouded hypoglycemia mind. The haze of the low is still settled over me like a film, clouding my senses but making me hyper aware of the panic my body is in as my brain searches for sugar and isn't finding enough to give me energy - but the anger is sharp, not dull, and I'm mad, because I don't want to be on the floor eating stupid ice cream because I went to work out that evening which was stupid because I'd gone at 9:00 PM and this was a delayed low from that and I was so frustrated and I was even scared because I almost had gone back to sleep and hadn't woken myself up to go treat my low and could have gone back to sleep and never woken up like others with my disease have done before me. I hated it. Nor had I ever done that before - just fallen back asleep nonchalantly. Lows were EMERGENCIES. Not something you tell yourself to go back to sleep for. Stupid. Stupid! You could have killed yourself! I thought angrily.

When I had the strength to stand again, I set the kitchen back in order and then walked slowly, resignedly back to my room to sleep. It was only 2:36 a.m. I was angry, but I tried to console myself: the important thing, I tried to remind myself, was that I had woken up and I had treated and today was World Diabetes Day (11/14), in which we Diabetics try to hope that enough people will care someday and keep trying and trying and trying.... so that maybe someday, I can eat a sandwich. Just eat a sandwich. No testing, no insulin. So I can sleep easy without worrying about my sugar. So that I don't feel the guilt of a high... so we can all be normal... someday. We dream, we live, we rejoice, we cope, we suffer, we falter, we try - we are imperfect human beings trying to live our difficult lives and be a pancreas at the same time. It's hard. We'll keep trying. We'll keep living through little battles such as these. And, always, we'll keep hoping for a miracle - the seemingly impossible, the dream of a dream. A cure. Always and forever, hoping for a cure.

Diabetes Day.

Today is a special day: It's National Type 1 Diabetes Awareness Day, and November marks the start of National Diabetes Awareness Month.

It's funny how in the course of 2.5 years you can go from never having heard about such a day, to living it every year, marking the day with blue clothes and perhaps a blue circle on your hand. Do I expect this day to have the same kind of significance to others as it does to me? No, of course not. But still, I'll wear my blue and share the significance of the day with others, if only because it makes me feel as though I'm not going through this journey alone.

Every chance to educate another person and spread awareness is important, after all - important to a cure, to more research, and important to simply letting people know that Diabetes isn't simply a disease your grandpa got from eating too much sugar. Type 1 Diabetes is so much more - it permeates your life, coloring everything from the food you eat to the thoughts you think in your head until you live, eat, sleep, breath Diabetes all of your living days. Yes, I talk about it too much. But if you're constantly barraged, day by day, with thoughts such as:

My heart is racing. Am I low?
Did I forget to put new syringes in my meter case?
How many carbs does this fast food meal have?
Should I really eat this?
Did I change my lancet? Note: just kidding about that one. Diabetics rarely change their lancets. I don't feel bad - we all do it.
My mouth is dry. Is my blood sugar high?
How much insulin do I need to bolus for the pizza now, and how much should I bolus for later to account for the fat? Should I have two slices? Maybe just one? Will that affect my sugar more?
Can my levels afford to eat a slice of cake tonight?
What is my endo going to say about that 450 mg/dL last night?
Did I remember to grab an extra insulin pen before leaving the house?
Did I pack my lancets, syringes, extra pens in a cooler, extra meter, glucagon, ketostix and test strips for my trip?
I'm low during an exam and I can no longer concentrate.
I'm at work and I'm low and I need to find a time to treat.
I had to run out of the house this morning with breakfast and have to find time to give an injection before class, which I'm late for, so I'll have to do it in the car. 
How many carbohydrates does that pineapple casserole have?
All of my friends are eating it, and I don't want to seem weird for not eating it, either.
How do I politely turn down the huge bowl of pasta the host just gave me?
What is the etiquette for giving an insulin shot at a fancy dinner?
That huge bruise on my arm is from insulin, I swear. 
I need to give an injection but my stomach is all bruised, I'm in jeans and a long sleeve shirt. Where am I supposed to inject?
My sugar is high and I'm to blame. I feel like a failure.
How is the new health care law going to affect my ability to get medicine?
Will I have to have a high paying job for the rest of my life just to afford health care and medicine?
Does my employer care that I have Diabetes?
Will people treat me differently if I tell them?
Will the waiter look at me funny if I request the menu's nutrition info?
Please, for the love of God, if I have to head "I could never be Diabetic!" or, "I know exactly what Diabetes is like, I have low blood sugar sometimes!", I just might overdose on insulin because I'm sick of hearing it.
How did this test strip get there???

This is just some of what Type 1 Diabetics live with every.day. So yes - I mention it a lot. Because every hour, at minimum, thoughts such as these enter my head.
For Type 1's, Diabetes is our life, which creates an interesting paradox. We live our life trying to be as normal as possible, not letting Diabetes define us, and yet almost all of the actions we do seek to help us continue to be healthy and live in spite of this disease. Our actions are often defined by what we do to continue to live with Diabetes, and thus our actions require constant thoughts like the ones above. It's a heavy burden to bear - the price of Diabetes includes many things. It costs us freedom. It costs us time. It costs us health. And it costs us our very minds, which are sometimes consumed by this disease and all that it entails. And it's difficult.

So... days like this are special. They are a big deal. Maybe not to everyone, but to us individuals that know, and our loved ones, and perhaps the ones we can spread awareness to. Because they remind us Type 1 Diabetics of something important - that although this disease has such a high cost, that we can over come it. We are not alone, we are more than this disease, and although I may spend 18 hours of the day thinking about Diabetes, not counting all of the midnight lows, I am still my own person with and in spite of Diabetes. I work hard to treat myself so that I can still enjoy the quality of life that I desire. Paradox or no, this is the life I strive for - a life of living with Diabetes but also living in spite of it.

So here's to my 3rd year of celebrating National Type 1 Diabetes Awareness Day and Diabetes Awareness month. And here's to wishing all of the Type 1's out there many more years of observing this day to mark another year lived in spite of Type 1; and, perhaps, more importantly: many more healthy, perfectly normal days in between.