Four-Year Flashbacks (Continued)

Jell-o. That's all it is; it's like jell-o. I sat on the living room floor in relative misery, insulin pen in hand, staring at my stomach where I had rolled my shirt up to expose. 

I tried visualizing something different than my skin; anything. The jell-o; the orange, that the endocrinologist had had my parents practice giving injections to.

Except I wasn't an orange. 

And I was scared. Terrified, actually. I hated this - I hated everything about it - I hated the pharmacy of medicine I had been sent home with, I hated the bright red glucagon kits and the teddy bear that had come in the JDRF care package for new Diabetics, that I had gotten since I was still 17, not yet an "adult", by the legal sense of the word. I hated my family trying to tiptoe around me and make me feel better, as I walked to the kitchen toting my brand new black glucometer case, insulin pen always at my side, 

My mother, in her own caring way, didn't ask me how I was anymore. She asked, "what's your blood sugar?" And I loved her for it, because if anyone saw me for the miserable state I was in and cared it was her, but she didn't let me pity myself.

I was 93 pounds and didn't even have any fat on me. How was I supposed to inject in an area of fat? 

I leaned against the couch and felt I could cry.

I couldn't do it.

Couldn't.

I just couldn't. 

I was defeated, only a week and a half or so in. What day was it, anyways? I didn't know.

I had decided that semester I was taking all online classes through my dual enrollment program at Valencia College anyways - I was a senior at Apopka High, but I had never actually attended AHS. They just gave me free books, which is why I'd enrolled instead of staying technically "homeschooled", and this way I got a graduation ceremony, too.

I was only a few short weeks from finishing my classes at Valencia then, and then I'd graduate with my Associates in May - before I even walked for my High School Degree. I was proud of my accomplishments. But at the moment the thrill of graduation and my impending move to Georgia for college was dampened. More than that, actually. I felt depressed. Now, instead of being truly independent, what was I? Tied down, dependent on Florida medicaid and doctor's visits and insulin.... forever. Insulin, forever, that's what my life would revolve around. I scoffed. That's not freedom. That's conditional if anything ever was, and me - stubborn, 17, and ready to taste freedom - already loving and valuing that which I already had - felt like a bird stuck in a glass box. 

Just a girl in a glass box.

They could see in clearly but she couldn't get out, and they couldn't see why, and Diabetes was my box, forevermore.

I looked at that needle again, and my mother's words echoed in my head:

"If it was me, I'd just do it, because otherwise I'd die..."

I felt resigned. I gritted my teeth and stabbed my abdomen with my nightly Lantus.

How would I ever get used to this? Every day, multiple times a day...

That night, I crawled into bed, turned my face to the pillow and sobbed. I sobbed heartwrenching tears, because life had robbed me, it had robbed me of freedom and all things carefree. 

I sobbed and shoved my face into the pillow harder, trying to muffle the noise so no one heard.

I was alone, truly, I had all these supportive people but I was an island of the one at the end of the day, and I answered to the number on the glucose meter screen and the pinprick feel at the end of the needle.

I sobbed at the thought of what I'd become. I'd looked at myself in the big mirror on my dresser in my room that morning and tried on a pair of my shorts. They'd fallen off, and I was angry.

How could I not have noticed?

I sobbed because I hated needles, they were my biggest fear, and I wanted more than anything in the world to never have to deal with this again...

But I did. I had to deal with it now, and the sooner I moved on, the better.

Someday, people would stop acting sympathetic and posting well wishes on my Facebook wall and then they would expect me not necessarily to be better, but to be ok with it. "Got your blood sugars under control?" They'd ask, as though it was something that once you figured out it was locked in, you'd be golden forever.

It doesn't work like that - it's a scale you always wobble on, trying to tell it which way to go. I might be on the winning end one day but the next... 

I cried, and I cried for many nights.

And then one day I woke up and my blood sugar was 115 mg/dL, and I wasn't thrilled in a happy way, but I was excited, excited that my glucose was going my way. That was my first at-home victory.

And was it uphill from there? No. But I was encouraged my the feedback on my blog to keep writing, and I actually started looking forward to my daily posts. Suddenly I sought out stories from my new life that I could write about, things that I might share with other people.

And I saw my personality change.... I became bolder about life, more determined to appreciate it, share what was on my mind and not waste time.

And when I received my gown for my commencement from Valencia that May, two weeks before I graduated, I had an idea:

I would embroider I <3 insulin on my gown sleeve when I walked the stage for graduation with Valencia. And I would be proud - because I was learning to fight this disease, one step at a time.

And so I did just that.