Long Time Coming

Atlanta whispers softly to me throughout my days here.
I see it when I leave Kroger and walk back to my car - the skyscrapers of Buckhead surround me, glimmering in the sunlight.
Just now, the evening sun sets and the clouds take on a dreamy glow, providing a backdrop to the famous Bank of America tower.
The brick walls hold stories, the graffiti on the bridges a colorful mural that claim the city as their own.

And I - I am in the midst of it all. Of the hustle and bustle that used to seem so foreign to me; of the crowds and the noise that I once feared to live in.
But I don't fear it anymore - I embrace it, and I couldn't imagine life anywhere else right now. This is, wholeheartedly, the place I desire to be. Atlanta keeps me inside of its skyscraper palace, the walls of the perimeter encircle me in a bubble that I don't even have to leave if I don't want to.
And Atlanta has changed me. I feel myself becoming more confident, more mature and sure of the things I want. Full of greater understanding of responsibility and what it is to work hard and get things done. I'm learning, slowly, I'm growing.

Almost a year here, and I've never lived in a place that feels more like home. I see my friends as I go to school each day, the hallway with our lockers now familiar, the green walls, the plinths that serve as our desks and the endless class jokes. It feels like family.

I drive with confidence through the traffic, streaming to the other side of the interstate like a pro as I sing along to new songs, music that I might go hear at Eddie's Attic or The Masquerade or The Vinyl. I rarely go to chains to eat or get coffee; there's so many new and unique places here, and too little time with too many things to try. I feel at home when I come home and place my backpack down in my little room with the sloped walls and the paintings hanging just above me.

Life is a hectic, busy mess. Grad school takes up so much time. But I love it here, and for the first time in a long time, I know exactly who I am and who I want to be.
I think 17 year old me would be proud. Unsure, scared, upset and just-diagnosed with Diabetes 17 year old me, mad at the world and worried about everything to come, grasping for comfort at every outcropping of life I could find.
I started a great adventure 4 years ago the day I left home for Georgia, and the adventure has never stopped since.
I can't help but be thankful, because my learning to be me, to be at peace with this life I live, has been a long time coming.

Retinopathy, Neuropathy, Diabetes, Oh my

Retinopathy.
Neuropathy. Decreased healing. Increased risk of infection. Slowed healing times. Adhesive Capsulitis. Immune System changes. PVD. Alzheimer's. Skin changes.

It's another day in class, and we are talking about Diabetes and its rainbow of complications. It's a favourite topic of the health field, and I'm fairly used to it by now. Even the part where the professor says "Raise your hand if you know someone with Diabetes" and everyone in class raises their hand - or, "raise your hand if you know someone with Diabetes aside from Lacy" (and still nearly all of the hands go up).

Diabetes is a big deal. The rates are increasing year by year, in both the younger and older population. I hate having Diabetes, and as much as I would like to say that managing it has become vastly easier over these past 4 years, it seems like it's still as much of a daily struggle as always.
But sometimes I am thankful because it helps me to relate to a lot of people that struggle with this disease also. I remember back a couple of weeks ago, one of my first times volunteering with a group of geriatric individuals with my class to provide an exercise program.
One of the patients I was taking vitals for was mentioning her Diabetes, and how she didn't like getting low, especially after eating Dinner. "I'm already full," she's saying to me. "I don't want to eat again right after!"
"Well, have you tried glucose tabs?" I asked her. She responded with a "Well, yes... but I don't think they really work for me. I take one and it doesn't do anything!"

I thought for a second. "You're eating just one when you're low? You have to eat 4! They're 4g/carbs each. You need about 15g/carbs to raise yourself up from a low."
"Oooooooh. Really?! My Doctor never told me that... ugh, how frustrating!" The patient explained. "It's ok," I told her. "I have Diabetes too. I know it's frustrating. But you should try 4 instead. It helps!"

We had a long conversation about Diabetes from then on, and like many times before it was almost a bonding experience. I've had this before; working with patients, I always wonder if it's ok to bring up my Diabetes, especially if they're struggling with it, too. Sometimes I feel self conscious. I want my interactions with patients to be all about them and the last thing I want to do is turn it around to myself. But I feel it helps me to relate with a patient if I mention that I am Diabetic and they are, too. Suddenly I'm not just a health care professional; I'm someone who lives and breathes and understands the same kind of struggle, even just a little of a fraction of that piece of struggling, with someone. Personally, I feel as though it helps me relate to patients. I remember sitting sad in the hospital, casually and bitterly throwing aside all of the advice that people decided to throw my way. No one had Diabetes, they didn't understand.

But then Marie walked in, calm and cool and beautiful and collected. She pulled out an insulin pen, flashing her stylish and personally engraved medical ID bracelet and showed me how much better it was than syringes and vials. Told me I had an endocrinologist appointment with her across the street when I got out of the hospital. And more importantly, gave me a sliver of hope; hope that my life could be normal, hope that I could be like her. Even with Diabetes. If she could be like that, so could I.

In that case, having someone relate to me made all the difference in the world. It makes me feel better: makes me feel that I was diagnosed with this disease for a purpose. Maybe that's silly; maybe it's just a twisted coping mechanism for trying to justify why I live this life with this disease every day.

But regardless, I know this:
When we're sitting in integumentary class and I'm up on the table, shoes off and about to have a diabetic neuropathy/foot screen exam because that's what we're practicing every day, and my heart has a slight twinge of fear; there's the slim chance, what if? What would I do? 
And the talking about losing feet sensation really gets to me; it makes it worth it. I'm not in this struggle for nothing.

And having a foot screen that comes up as "low/no risk" for foot loss sensation makes me feel even better, that I'll be able to stay healthy to someday better help other people like me. Maybe one day I'll be the one going into the hospital room, and there will be a girl just diagnosed with Diabetes there, feeling quite alone and upset and angry at the world; maybe she'll feel like no one understands. Maybe I can help. Who knows?

Full Circle.

As my journey in Atlanta has nearly come full circle now; August is nearly here; I can't help but start to feel sentimental. I think about last year and how different life was, how worried I was to leave the life I had built for so long behind. I remember one night in July before I had moved into my new place in Atlanta, taking an exit off the interstate to what would be my future neighborhood and just driving around. I stopped and exhaled as one particularly pretty view came into my sight: the city lights, big and bright and beautiful, sparkling like stars in the soft glow of the summer evening.

For the first time that July night, I felt excitement for the life that I would have. I felt excitement for the change, for the big city that would grow to be my home. Atlanta was so full of mysteries and secrets. So full of life and colour. I remembered being just a 17 year old girl, excited for Wesleyan and my big move to Georgia. It was my first move away from home, and it was out of state. I would be on my own, free to make my choices and my own mistakes.

And one August day I woke up, the life I had lived for 4 years packed around me in my now-empty apartment, filled with boxes and rolls of tape and bubble wrap. I had slept for the last night on the silver daybed that I had had since 4th grade, that was going to a woman whom I had sold the bed to on Craigslist just the day before.
Over 3 back and forth trips to Atlanta later over the course of the next two days, everything was settled and all that remained was unpacking. The first thing I did, as always, was hang my collection of acrylic paintings - paintings I had made over the years, and pictures, of all of my friends and families and past events. I laid on my newly made bed and stared at the high, white sloped ceiling illuminated by the glow of my tall paper Ikea lamp. There were no glow in the dark stars, no Christmas lights, no pillows on the floor; I guess I was an adult now, with adult decorations and adult things and a pile of textbooks for school in August almost to my knees (that had cost as much as my first month's rent).

And just like that, Atlanta changed from just a place that I drove to on the weekend for work to home.
The city skyscrapers become comforting. The lights as I drove down 85/75 at night were as picturesque as canvas. Piedmont Park became a refuge from the busy cars and miles of sidewalks and pavement stretched before me. Little coffee shops became my secret places; made Atlanta feel more like home. I marveled as even the grocery store customers seemed to walk faster; the pace here wasn't southern mosey-ing, but rather, go, go, go. The graffiti plastered buildings walls and bridges like my own personal museum. The sounds of the city and the cars rushing by and the sirens sung me to sleep at night. I found my special places, favourite restaurants - Argosy, the Vortex, Bound to Be Read, the Beltline, Inman Park (and Perk).
As the year progressed, I watched the list grow even longer. I picked up Swing Dancing for the first time as I attended my first Georgia Tech Dance Association Dance. Discovered swing's weekly Monday dance - Hot Jam - as well as Friday night Contra in Clarkston. Sweet Hut and Lee's Bakery in the Asian section of Doraville (pho!) Rock climbing at Stone Summit's incredible gym. The Vortex's The Bone Garden, countless coffee shops: Dancing Goats, Dr. Bombay's, Octane. I actually went to the Westside (and liked it).

And more importantly, the reason I came here, I've grown since starting Mercer. It's been a whirlwind year of sleepless nights and endless struggles and working until I could work no more. From being up sunup to sundown at the same building in the same classroom with the green walls and two pillars as we studiously learned new skills, dissected cadavers, tried to slow the flow of the firehose of information to make it more manageable (and usually failing). Growth is hard. I learned about sacrifice and how much harder I had to work than I ever had in undergrad.
This next year will be ever more filled with changes. As my class and I complete the last two semesters of the academic portion of our PT program and go to clinic starting next Summer, I will be one step closer to my goal of becoming a PT. It's been a hard academic year, but an amazing one of fellowship and glorious new friendships and relationships. My heart is so full of all the incredible new things I have experienced in just one year, the richness and the colour of the city around me.

 The fear of moving to a new place is all but a distant memory now. God had had everything for this year planned all along - all I had had to do was make the leap.

Old Soul

I'd be a lot more fun if I was simple. Sometimes I think I was intended to be, but life decided to get its too-rough hands on me. I became someone who had to fight, to sink or swim, to push forward or I wouldn't survive. No matter what the cost.
It gives me drive, passion. But the fight makes me rough around the edges. A little jaded. Blunt. Sometimes I want to scream,

"Look at me. I'm a beautiful human being, too..." if only you could see past these stone cold towers I've had to build to get by. Beyond them, I'm an ocean. Deep blue, mysterious, infinite. I am.
But all you see are these walls I made because I had to, because that's just the hand life dealt me. You don't know why, but they're there.
And so I'm not a lot of fun. I'm just that girl - that ever-fighting girl, the old soul, slightly removed from all the rest; removed by those too-rough fingers of the world. Those fingers that caress me, strangle me, build me a prison and a home. But it's my home; the only home I've ever known.
And once you're there, you can never truly go back.
It doesn't make you very fun.

It's just an ache that makes your soul old.

Invisible Illness.

It's one of our last days in cadaver lab, and we are going from cadaver to cadaver, studying the different parts and pieces in preparation for our final lab exam.
I am going from body to body, trying to distinguish between the greater and lesser omentum of the abdominal cavity when I feel the familiar buzz of my mind and a slight feeling of being underwater too long.
Dizzy. Lightheaded. Heartbeat. Difficulty concentrating. I am fairly confident I'm low, but there are thoughts going through my head - back to the last time I got low in lab a month ago:

One month earlier

"Are you ok, Lacy?"
Victor, Robert and Jason asked.
"I don't know... I feel like I've been underwater too long. Ugh, I'm low. I know it,"

This story in a story requires some background:
1. A month before on one of the random snow days I'd rushed to school and realized I only had enough insulin in my pen to last me the rest of the day. But if you know anything about Atlanta traffic and snow, last year was awful, and though that day wasn't looking to be bad we were under a snow warning.
I was concerned and thinking the worst case scenario - what if I couldn't go home that night? I'd have no insulin for the next day.
And so I asked my lab prof if I could leave a little early from cadaver lab to get my extra insulin during lunch for simple peace of mind since I live all the way across town. I would just feel better if I did because, it's my life and it's my Diabetes and mornings can be hectic and things get forgotten. So I got permission and I did and everything was fine, and I just gave my friend Chelsea the extra insulin I didn't use that day to keep at her place across the street in case I ever run into the issue again.

2. My sugars are weird in the morning. I don't know why, but I need amount 2x the amount of insulin I usually do. My insulin to carb ratio is typically about 1:5 - I have a protein shake with maybe 10-12 grams at most in the morning. I've been skipping the coffee this semester and opting for water or tea as coffee can spike me sometimes.
So, theoretically, I should need 2 units, if any, for breakfast in the morning.
But I don't - no matter how good my sugars are when I wake up, I consistently need at least 8.


I gave 8 the day before but still ended up at 220 mg/dL for my protein shake. So since my correction bolus is 1 unit for every 35 mg/dL I wanted to go down, and my goal is 130 mg/dL, I need about 3 correction units.
So that morning on the way to school, I gave 11 units.
Then I went to school and had my morning snack (15 g/Carbs) during break. I remember prepping my bolus before I actually gave it and went to my locker to get my snack in an attempt to pre-bolus for better control; which I just started trying to do to better control my sugars that week or the week before.
And that's when I got confused, because then Chelsea came up to me with pralines from her trip to Savannah that weekend and I just remember knowing I was definitely going to need more insulin since the pralines are pretty much straight sugar and so I couldn't remember if I'd already pre-bolused at that point but either way I gave more for the pralines. I didn't know how many carbs were in them so I had to guess. I ate my snack and we went down to lab.

And so 30 minutes later after wondering why I felt weird, and my lab partners asked me if I was ok and I wasn't, I went into the hall to check my sugar: It was 40. It might have been because I overdid it on the insulin that morning for my breakfast, or on the pralines, or had even accidentally double bolused for snacks that morning. Either way though, this was one of the worst I'd had in a while and I felt like absolute shit. I didn't keep food in the cadaver hall so I went to the locker room, slid down the wall and ate a granola bar and waited to feel better, which was taking a while. Lows can be indescribably bad sometimes and it's hard to describe how debilitating it is.
I had told my lab group I felt low and I was sitting there worried because what would I do in the clinic if this happened? I was mad at myself. My sugars weren't bad but it was frustrating when this happens. No one likes to feel limited by their body when they have no time to be limited, when they want to excel.

Chelsea came out to check on me after about 5 or 10 minutes when I was still feeling awful, and I was expressing to her this frustration and my worries about clinic when my professor - the same one who I'd asked permission for on snow day earlier that month - came out.

She looked at me as I told her I'm sorry, I feel awful and this was a bad low and that I was just waiting to feel recovered and I couldn't remember if I'd bolused twice that morning or if it was just overbolusing on accident. She looked at me as she said,
"Lacy,"
"You do an awful job of managing your blood sugars."

Those words hit me like a train as I furrowed my brows, not sure whether to laugh because it was a joke or if this woman - who saw me 2 times a week and didn't know my blood sugars and wasn't an endocrinologist - was passing a judgement on me in one of the lowest states I could be in, right after I'd just told Chelsea how worried I was and how I'd have to step things up for the clinic as a professional to try hard and not have random lows like this. But lab was different also because you can't exactly eat around dead bodies, so I had to leave to treat versus just keep glucose tabs in my pocket, which I always did on clinic days.

My confused face turned into disbelief and my heart sunk like a rock. I looked at her and said,

"Excuse me?"

"Seriously Lacy, you are not doing good. Forgetting if you gave insulin... forgetting your insulin that one time...you're in your 20's, you need to have a handle on this."

I just looked and looked at her and my voice cracked as I whispered, "I've only had it for four years. You don't have any idea how little time that is to adjust to a complete change in life. And then take that life you've gotten used to and go to grad school which is full of schedule changes and stress and hours of school at a time and ask me if it's going to be hard to adjust. Lows are a side effect of insulin, No matter how hard I try to manage my sugars they will happen sometimes."

"Well have you thought about getting a pump?"
My head fell, "I can't get a pump," I said softly. I couldn't explain to her why because the reason why I couldn't get one (aside from not wanting one) was one that was a well-kept secret currently. I tried explaining how hard my sugars were to manage for no reason in the morning. "Well have you tried greek yogurt in your protein shake?"

Note: Greek Yogurt usually has about 20 additional grams of carbs per serving; the amount of protein it has doesn't really negate that.

"No." I told her. Tears were pouring down my face at this point and I was more or less sobbing. I felt like total and absolute shit - lows make you irritable and emotional and vulnerable physically and mentally as it is and then cue someone coming in and then unintentionally shaming you because life doesn't stop for Diabetes and you have to treat it amongst everything else going on in your life.

And you are Going to make slip ups.You just ARE. It happens. And I can't always help it. Sometimes I can and it's my mistake, sometimes it's just because I get low or maybe my sugars are high even when I've done everything right.

Your life is a scale always with Diabetes, and even when you're balanced, it takes only on slight movement to send you toppling down again.

And so all I could do was cry and cry because I felt like a failure. Would I make a bad clinician? How could I express what I feel? I felt judged, and I felt hurt, because when I first came into this program we received a whole speech about how we should never judge patients for their condition. And I guess this is overreacting but I did feel judged, because I live with an invisible illness and it's so complicated that even in class all I ever hear from professors teaching about Diabetes is,

This stuff is complicated, guys.

Try living it and then being expected to never show that weakness because you're ok. You SEEM normal. And when you're not it's because you're not taking care of yourself right; because the doctor gave you a prescription and you have insulin and you just treat yourself easy as that, right?
But when there's no one size fits all for insulin dosage and it can change on a dime or the morning's are just tricky to treat....
It's not that easy.

And when I show it and I get low all of a sudden I feel shamed for it. I shouldn't have lost track of my bolus but it was a simple mistake, I promise you, and it happens. We are humans and we make errors.

I was angry and hurt and devastated. But all I could say was "I'm sorry, lows just make me emotional," as I sobbed and told the professor that I'd be back in lab soon, that it was nothing, that her words didn't hurt me even though it felt like a slap to the face.
When it's you living with the invisible illness, it's different. When it's you struggling to not let the disease define you, it's different. Because in that moment I was defined as the girl who, according to the professor who told Chelsea before Chelsea came to check on me,

was as she stated, "That girl who never manages her blood sugars,"
I went back into lab wiping tears from my face and experienced a lecture later from the other lab professor who asked if I was ok. "Clinic is better," she said. "You have more freedom. But be careful. I know your illness makes you more... vulnerable to doing poorly."

No. No. When I do poorly it's because of me, it's NOT because of my illness. No.
That day struck me hard, and I've carried it with me since. I've even tightened control over my blood sugars - but I didn't forget about how that day made me feel.



So cue back last Friday when I thought I might be low. I creeped quietly to the hallway, tested, saw the 50 and ate 5 glucose tabs. Then I went straight back in, pushing through the lightheadedness, and smiled at one of the professors as I went back to my table.
Like nothing had happened.

Like my low was just as invisible as my illness.

Happy Almost-4th Dia-versary to Me: I'm Writing a Book!

When I was first diagnosed with Diabetes, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know anything... I didn't know there were two types of Diabetes, and I thought an insulin pump was a sticker you put on your body that somehow cured your Diabetes. 

It's a week out from four years now, and sometimes I still don't know what to do. Sometimes I sit and cry because I feel defeated, I feel angry or mad or sad because I feel that Diabetes has one that day.

But there is something I know to do, and that's write. And I wrote when I first started - I still write now.

Four years ago, I started back on writing this blog with a fresh outtake on life. So, in honour of my almost-4th Dia-versary, now I guess is a good time to say that, I'm writing a book. I really, really am. I'm over 100 pages in! And I don't know when it will be finished, but it will be. And I want to share the first (very rough draft) intro and chapter with you.

Intro

          “I have Type 1 Diabetes” seems both an unfair and obvious way to start a book. I mean, for a Diabetic, that's almost outright laziness. Yes, I have Diabetes! Thank you, Captain Obvious. You knew that this book was going to have something to do with Diabetes when you decided to pick it up and read at least the title.

P.S. I feel like I need to disclaim from the get-go that I have the tendency to be very snarky.

Ok, so, how do I start adequately? How about...

“When I used to play the “when I grow up” game as a child, “growing up to have a chronic disease” was never what I envisioned.”

Now we're getting somewhere. Sentimental, a little bit over dramatic, but poignant and true.

Or,

“Irony: your biggest fear is needles, and you end up getting a disease that requires you to stick yourself over 5 times a day.”

Yes, it's just that. Ironic. Diabetes is a very ironic disease. More on that later.

Well, the truth is, there are infinite ways to begin a book. I've never written one, and I don't claim to be particularly good at it. Writing is my heart and soul, though. I feel like I can accurately take my thoughts from my head and transcribe them into words. I've always been good at it. As a child, I was obsessed with keeping diaries. Through thick and thin, writing has always been a part of my life.

So, whether it ends up being good or bad, there is one thing I feel that this beginning should accomplish, along with clarifying that this is, in fact, a book that is largely to do with Type 1 Diabetes. Well, it is, and it isn't. This book is my way of proving to you and to myself that Diabetes has impacted every single part of my life. But, on the same note, this book is a way of proving that Diabetes has not come to define me. Or limit me. Or control me. To say that Diabetes blows is entirely and unequivocally true. Diabetes is such a hard disease to live with because it is so taxing both physically and mentally. 24/7, you become a walking, talking carb counter- blood sugar monitor – insulin administrator – in short, you are an unpaid, overworked and over-tired pancreas. You're also a guinea pig. Do you think that Diabetes simply requires a set regiment to treat? A shot of insulin, and you're good to go?

Let me briefly walk you through it -

You sit down and have a meal. Ok, you have to count to carbs. You give insulin based on how many carbs you are eating, which implies that you have counted correctly. But wait. There's more! Are you going to do heavy labour or exercise-intensive activities afterwards? Have you done any prior to eating? Are you going to take a shower? Go running? Are you eating fiber or a high-fat meal? All of these things can affect the way that insulin effects you. What if you counted the carbs right and gave the insulin and you still have high blood sugar, or you wind up low? Are you giving too much 24-hour insulin? Do you need to lower your insulin to carb ratio?

Things don't go according to plan with Diabetes, almost ever. To a Diabetic, we learn to expect this. It becomes second nature, but still, it's hard, because a lot of the times we do mess up. We get it wrong. Living with Diabetes is like living on a see saw, and you are struggling to always stay balanced between high blood sugars and low. It is you who has to listen to your body and pay attention and problem solve. Sometimes, doctors can only do so much, and the rest is up to you. Sometimes, doctors are downright jerks, and they forget that you are not only a patient, but a living, breathing human being who has to manage this disease alongside all of life’s other challenges.

But now, back to the first point. Long, long ago, in a hospital far away...

I am sitting in my hospital bed. I have been in the hospital for a few days now, having been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes after going into Diabetic Ketoacidosis*. My friend Erica and I have been best friends since freshman year. We are closer than can be, and Erica and I spend a good time during those days just sharing the too-small hospital bed and sitting in silence, occasionally uttering deep and poignant things. Looking back at this time, I don't number the days because I realize that they took on a life of their own. Those few days in the hospital – and honestly I couldn't tell you how many those were any more – were a world unto their selves, where the rest of the outside world ceased to matter any longer. Within the fog of this other world, my conscious parts to reveal the memory of the time that Erica came to visit and handed me a small blue journal and pen. There was nothing special about this journal, except that it was given with the knowledge that Erica knew the deepest way in which I could express myself was through my writing. Writing had seen me through all of my past times of trouble, and Erica had been there to witness the hardest of these. In my self-pity (there was much of this after my diagnosis) it hadn't really occurred to me to seek writing as a form of therapy for my shiny, brand-new chronic disease. I looked at Erica appreciatively but looked at the journal ruefully. It was in my nature to make snarky (told you) and humourous responses, trying to set my mind on the optimistic route so as to curtail the emotional damages of the situations I faced. What I'm trying to say is, I looked at the journal and laughed. “I am going to be the worst Diabetic ever,” I told Erica. “And to play fun at this disease, I need to make not a self-help book, but a non-self help book. Everyone here has tried to give me enough help, and I’ve had so much I’m sick of it.­” Erica laughed and agreed with me. After she had left that afternoon, I began the rudimentary journal that would serve as the gateway to my true therapy – the blog that was born of the “Non-Self Help Book”. My blog became my oasis from Diabetes – it became my salvation. I arrived home from the hospital, 90 pounds, physically and emotionally drained, and armed with a mini pharmacy of medications. Every day was a new challenge that began with the number that reflected on the screen of a glucometer. Every night ended with a wet pillow as I cried myself to sleep, begging God the question of why I had been the one in millions who was cursed with this disease. The beginning was rough for me, which I suppose was to be expected.

I came home writing in my little journal, funny quips about how there should be sugar free milkshakes, and the steps to give an insulin shot (1. Open pen cap 2. Inject insulin 3. Do not chicken out from injecting insulin).

I had experienced depression before, and Diabetes came with its own set of emotional pathology, it's true. I felt isolated from humanity. I didn't know any other Type 1 Diabetics. I struggled with a very real fear of needles, and a sense of being limited by my body. I sat down at the computer one day and opened up my metaphorically dusty online blog. I think most teenagers probably went through the self-realizing “start a blog” phase. Then comes the phase of writing a few decent posts. And the subsequent phase of forgetting they have a blog for an unspecified amount of time. I actually kept up with my blog well in comparison to most of these cases, but before diabetes, it honestly lacked specificity or a solid theme to hold it together. I mean, I’m interesting to me, but there was really no interesting reason for others to read it aside from knowing me. But now, I watched things click together in my head as I began to open up a new draft and document the series of events leading up to my diagnosis. And things really clicked when I saw how many people read it. Bad as it sounded, I realized that having Diabetes made my blog more interesting. People wanted to hear my story and my struggles. And writing them out helped me to cope with things. Everyday struggles of Diabetes became new material to blog about. Humour could be found in funny catchphrases and titles I thought up to summarize my posts.

And what's more... I watched myself begin to change with every post. Secretive, subtle Lacy, who bottled everything up, realized that life was too fragile to do that. And so I opened up and spilled all on my blog. My deepest emotions, my worries, my insecurity about my no-makeup face and concerns for how Diabetes would impact my dreams. What college in a new state would be like, alone and with a disease I was still stumbling to learn about. I began to open up, and with it, I realized how emotionally stable that my blog began to help me to be. What a sense of purpose by blog helped to give me. Diabetes had changed my life, but Diabetes also gave me a platform to stand on, an issue to follow and fight for.

1. Things More Preferable Than Death: Needles, and Writing.

I am looking at my body right now. It's spattered with a myriad of bruises varying in size, shape and colour. If you look closely, sometimes you can see little red pinpricks. My fingertips are callused over and covered in little red dots on the sides. This is my everyday reality: Diabetic. Broken. Bruised. Callused. Pain. Inconvenience. I live with it, and I am not madly unhappy. The truth is, you learn to become content with the lot that life throws at you. You accept it as inevitability, you make peace with the reality, and you push onward. At least, in my experience, that's how it works. So many people tell me (much to my annoyance), and I quote, “Wow, I could never have Diabetes. I hate needles too much.”

            Just think about that statement for a second though. One, I find it slightly offensive that you insinuated that I, oh, don't know, wanted to have Diabetes? And two, needles are slightly more preferable than death. But maybe that's just me.

But, I also look at myself from an outside perspective – like the outside looking in on me – and, allow me to be self-serving and sentimental about myself for a moment. I see a driven and passionate woman that fights every day for her goals and dreams. And suddenly, she is faced with this disease that makes her feel as though she is sometimes pushed to the wayside, a side actor in the limelight that Diabetes steals. Her fingers are hurt and bruised, and sometimes the insulin stings. And I think this:

My story deserves to be told. I don't want to go through this struggle silently, feeling like a martyr for a disease that tries to destroy me daily. This book is also my way of standing up to Diabetes. It may be a struggle I ultimately face alone much of the time, but I take comfort in the fact that I can share this struggle with others. Which, oh maybe-captivated reader, is precisely what I aim to do.

Humble - For R.

Be humble, for you are made of earth. Be noble, for you are made of stars.
What does it mean? It never changed my outlook. But it describes what I feel about life.
Humility is so important, but it's not human tendency to be humble.
I've always felt acutely aware of this virtue. I see our tendencies - the way other people have conversations, and they listen, and wait until the moment they can have their say.
I feel self conscious sometimes for talking too much about myself. Do I, or do I make it up inside my head? Do we as people do to many things just to benefit ourselves in the end?
Me, well, I need to shut my mouth, and listen more.
Ok, so that's part selfishness.
But humility... life knocks us down. And God wills us to be humble almost, through these experiences, chaotic as they are.
I grew up feeling like I ruined the things I loved. Best friends left, Dad wasn't around, family fell apart... then I lost my freedom, so loved, to an illness, and I lost people I loved, I lost two cars, and it seems like the things I love and desire I just push away. I am humbled. It has torn me down. My life as it was "supposed" to be doesn't exist.

But me, I have learned to be happy.
I was bitter at the world at 14 and bottled it all in and kept everyone out. But daddy, he doesn't even know it, changed my life because he told me that to be happy was to be a choice. And something in that resonated with me, and I took my bitterness and the darkness - the selfishness, the jealousy and the tinge of cruelty in my heart and I pushed it aside. I can't completely leave it - it's there, but I learned to choose to be bright, to have joy and to let it shine through.
To see the little things, the good things that we can love about life.
To let myself mourn and be down when I have to, but then understand that I'll get back up again - just give it time.

I have learned to be proud of who I am. I am the outcast, the one who always finds the group outside the group.
2nd grade me was driving to school with mom and I looked at her and said,
"Mommy, I'm not popular."
I don't even remember what mom said, but I remember being acutely aware that my societal status on the totem pole was not one of monumental importance among my 2nd grade group. And outside the group I stayed, as I grew, I always gravitated towards the quiet ones, or the different ones, or the slightly weird ones.
And I loved it. I loved them. And they loved me.
And I learned that that's not mediocrity. If that's going to be who I am, who I naturally became, well then, I'll let it be. It's not settling. Actually, instead of trying to conform or fit in, I blossomed into myself. I realized that I'm not content with the external. What I loved was inside. The deeper things. The meaningful ones, and my world was just a little more behind the scenes than my popular classmates.
It's ok. Because I'd make it home there.
I'm the one content with that. I have never been in the "in" group, never once, truly. The time I feel equal is when I'm with my homeschool highschool friends.
The time I feel capable is when I'm working parties in a business I created from scratch here.
PT school has humbled me.

I am leveled, in many ways.
But I accept who I am, The introvert, the quiet artist, studier, writer, reader. Lover of poetry and solitary walks in the park. The feeling of being alone in a crowded room. The freedom of dancing, the love of deep conversations and rushing to write down poems as they fly through my head, like snowflakes that have fallen and are about to melt.
I'm selfish, I'm emotional, I'm stubborn. I'm lazy in many ways, I don't like to ask for help and I get a thrill from breaking the mold. I break rules. I bend them. I do things differently. I figure it out.
I'll be a PT, but I won't be a PT like others. Watch me. I like to do things my own way, and sometimes that gets me into trouble. But I have this keen feeling of intuition - I know I'll be ok if I do it this way, just trust myself and guide through - and so I trod along on a path that sometimes is more complicated than the path I could have, perhaps should have taken.
But it's who I am, and I do it with love for life and with passion.

How do you learn to maintain everything about the person you are but bend to accept and humble yourself around others?
First you learn to accept yourself. To forgive. To have patience. To have drive, and to let yourself not be afraid to fall just so...
And know your passions. What do you love to do? Because when you do what you love, who you are shines through, no matter what kind of mask you wear for them. 
Do the things you love with love and do what you do with love and joy in your heart and that joy that can't be faked will shine through.
I take a moment to write a poem down in class or start a blog of what's on my mind but it's the little things I have to do to let the real me breathe, to let who I am still shine through in this world of MMT and muscles of cardiopulmonary and muscular foundations and Exam and Interventions and goniometers and so much PT it makes my head dizzy because I am in over my head. And to keep from drowning I do what I know to do. And I make it work.

And I let myself remember that no matter how long or hard my struggle, everyone else has problems as big to them as mine are to me. They are busy. They've had their hearts broken. And they know how to make rational decisions, that may not be rational seeming to you but they are to them (Benefits outweigh the costs).
I promise myself I'll let myself be understanding. I'll be kindhearted. I'll make even the things I disagree with a learning experience or opportunity. It's life - it's beautiful, crooked, messed up, imperfect, disagreeable, and it's that variety that makes it worth living.
Value the person, and then go from there. When you realize that we as people have intrinsic value - no matter who we are - it's easier to start to understand, even if you don't fully. What matters is you are willing to try, and people will see that.
Let it touch your heart, and no matter what bad may lie there, the good will shine through the more you try.
There are things about me that I don't like but I can't change.
And I could try to beat myself up about why that is, but instead I'll try these little things piece by piece - recognizing each opportunity to try and understand someone else and be kind as one of growth -
And I feel that I actually make a lot more progress than I thought I would.