In January, I had the flu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Not much of a news flash, I realize, but I was unable to stay hydrated and I failed to keep my sugar under 250. The end result was two visits to the Emergency Room in one day with a diagnosis of DKA and Influenza.

I never felt exceptionally sick from the flu. The first night in the intensive care unit was the worst because my nose was clogged and I hate not being able to breathe freely. Worse than blocked air passages, though, is vomiting. At least, for me it is. I HATE nausea. I hate feeling like I’m going to throw up and I hate the act of vomiting. I bring this up only because my story today revolves around the four times in my life when nausea has truly been an issue for me. It is rare for me to have issues with my stomach being unhappy. I am generally an exceptionally healthy individual–except for my broken pancreas. And that is the common thread among ALL four of my most horrendous encounters with nausea.

The first time was in early 2000 while I visited my parents in Bremerton, Washington. We had pizza for dinner and, sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up and started vomiting. And I didn’t stop. Even after the only thing coming up was sickish-green looking bile. By this time I had made it down the hall to wake up my parents, which was awkward only because I was 25 and of the belief I shouldn’t have to wake up my mommy to take care of me. Only I needed her that night. I distinctly remember one moment kneeling  over the toilet bowl and my mom lovingly asking me if I wanted any left-over pizza. (I know when you read this, mom, that you will feel guilty–but DON’T!!) This memory still makes me cringe and grin simultaneously.

I spent the next few days not able to get out of bed except to limp into the bathroom to take a hot shower in the hopes of relieving the extreme pain in my lower back. The showers never helped me though, because, as I know now, the pain was in my kidneys and had nothing to do with my muscles. In retrospect, I can look back to this episode and realize it was an attack of acute pancreatitis that should have put me in a hospital bed–if I weren’t such a strong and stubborn individual. The question has now, in the intervening years, become like the question of the chicken or the egg: Could it have been my undiagnosed diabetes causing the pancreatitis, or did the pancreatitis create my diabetes?

The answer doesn’t matter. What does matter is the fact that my next encounter with nausea was in 2008 while I was living in Las Vegas and was diagnosed with insulin-dependent diabetes. I shared that particular horror in a past post and have no desire to embellish again. Suffice it to say that being 25 before my first encounter with nausea, and the fact that it was eight years before the next encounter, goes far in proving my point that nausea and I do not share a close relationship–diabetes links us despite my general imperviousness for nausea.

My third encounter was approximately five years later while I was living in Eugene without health insurance. I was buying my insulin (Regular/NPH) over the counter, along with my syringes and strips. This regime had sustained me through my first year after diagnosis in Vegas and during the first few years of residing in Eugene. At the time, living without a diabetic support team, and having experienced debilitating hypoglycemic events, I felt compelled to maintain my sugar around 200. Eventually, this led to my second experience with, but first diagnosis of, Diabetic Ketoacidosis. The day started with my decision to ride the long way to work so I could stop at McDonald’s and get a couple egg mcmuffins to start the day with. I made it to Mickey D’s, but I had to call in sick to work while in the parking lot because the nausea had become so intense. I went home, started throwing up, and finally called a friend to take me to the hospital.

I was in the hospital for four days. I started on Lantus and Humalog, was enrolled with State-covered health insurance, and started visiting an endocrinologist regularly again. I may have recovered from the severe consequences of high blood sugar, but I was once again a victim of the severe side-effects of insulin. After a couple of years, I finally made the decision to switch to pump therapy in the hopes of relieving the hypoglycemia. My journey of making the transition from syringe to pump is a story I’m saving for another day (but one well worth the telling).

My fourth, and currently final, encounter with nausea was in January of this year. I was sick with the flu and I did what I was supposed to do: stayed home and rested while trying to stay hydrated. But it didn’t work. I kept throwing up after drinking water or Gatorade. I finally decided at three in the morning to call a taxi to take me to the hospital. The waiting room was quiet and the wait wasn’t long. I was eventually sent home by 6:30 with the instructions to stay hydrated. I had gone in telling them that my sugar wouldn’t go below 250 no matter how much insulin I added (and how that worried me because it is ALWAYS terrifying to stack insulin knowing it will most likely ALL kick in at the exact same moment–and THEN start to finally work within a five minute time frame). But the doctor simply said, “you do have some ketones in your blood, but just stay hydrated.”

So I went home and tried to stay hydrated. My stacked insulin never kicked in and my blood sugar stayed high. I finally called a friend at 6pm to take me back to the hospital. This time the waiting room was packed. I sat and waited until almost 9:00 before finally being admitted. I had started vomiting again around 7:45 and spent the last hour of my wait sitting in the corner with a vomit bag slowly filling up while I cried on the phone with my mom wishing someone would come and help me. By midnight I was diagnosed with Influenza (again) with complications of non-coma Diabetic Ketoacidosis (the exact reason why I had been in the exact same hospital twenty hours earlier with the hopes of avoiding).

They needed to put me in intensive care, the only problem being that there wasn’t an available bed anywhere in the valley: Eugene/Springfield, Albany and Salem were full of Influenza patients. I was told at midnight that I would be transported by ambulance to Oregon Health Sciences in Portland. I said OK and went back to sleep. I was awoken at 1:30 and told that my diagnosis had put me on the top of the transport list and I would be flown to Portland. I said OK and signed the paperwork they handed me. By 2:30 I was wrapped to a gurney and transported, in my first ambulance ride, to the Eugene airport and put on a private jet. There was just enough room for my gurney, my two medics, and the pilot. I admit to being disappointed it wasn’t a helicopter, but a private jet ride still ain’t too shabby.

By 5:00 I was tucked away in the medical intensive care unit at OHSU and feeling just fine, now that my sugar had finally been brought back down into range long enough to give nausea-the–unwelcome–house–guest a welcome kick in the arse. I spent a total of three days in the hospital, which was asinine and a direct factor of the complete incompetence of some medical professionals to comprehend diabetes, let alone how to efficiently treat it without the benefit of listening to the person who experiences living with her diabetes EVERY SINGLE DAY (again, another story for another day).

I don’t know if I would experience nausea in my life to the extent that I do if I were to have a functioning pancreas. What I do know is that I appreciate nausea for always being a sincere and accurate indicator of severe problems associated with my dysfunctional pancreas. I despise nausea, but I respect it enough to always listen and pay attention. The parameters of my life were dropped on me without the benefit of options. Sometimes, I am so jealous of the Type 2’s who are able to reverse the effects of diabetes with exercise and lifestyle changes. I wish I could simply make a change in my life that would have the effect of minimizing my experience with diabetes, but all the changes I am forced to make are changes necessary for my ability to survive the process of using the only substance known to keep me alive.

At times it feels incredibly unfair. At other times it feels completely natural. After all, this life is the only Life I have to live.