Day 4: Diabetes (part 1)

On November 13, 2018November 14, 2018 By ZephyrIn diabetes diagnosis, Diabetic Lifestyle, disability discrimination, Type 1 Diabetes, Type 1.5 Diabetes, Type LADALeave a comment

I went to work at the pool because of Diabetes. I remained employed at the pool for nine years because of Diabetes. I allowed myself to suffer severe and pervasive harassment and discrimination for six years because of Diabetes.

Diabetes scares me more than the evil natural by-product of blind ignorance produced by the likes of Red, Fryer, Dale, Bill, Amanda, and every other individual working for the Park District combined ever possibly can. None of them can end my life. They have definitely made my life more difficult, stressful, unbearable, and unhealthy then it now is without them in it, but, with the help of the Park District, and my experience surviving there, I have finally learned how my diabetes works.

I first started this blog as a way to chronicle the shift of thinking about myself as being diabetic to thinking of myself as diabetic. It was a depth of acceptance that had eluded me for almost ten years. Reading back over my first few posts I can still read the frustration and anger resulting from my diagnosis in my words. I have managed to survive long enough to spend a quarter of my current lifespan as a diabetic. It is a trend I am hoping to continue for the next half of my life. Social survival at the pool was always secondary to the survival of my life.

The irony of insulin-dependent diabetes is equally as beautiful as the moment of handing Fryer the key while he was in his swim suit. But, I fear it is an irony that only people intimately involved with insulin are ever truly able to appreciate. For those of you reading who aren’t familiar with insulin, or Diabetes in general, I am going to spend the next couple hours (before my friend cooks me dinner tonight) briefly explaining the different ‘types’ of Diabetes so later I may hopefully be able to explain in detail the intricacy of insulin-dependent (or Type 1) diabetes, so you may have a better understanding of my disability and how I was able to be discriminated against for my disability at the pool by the administration of the Park District.

There are two types of Diabetes that are mentioned in the media, of which most people unassociated with the disease in general are aware of the one called Type 2, also usually labeled as ‘adult onset.’ It is the version of diabetes that most people have some kind of connection to, mostly with an older relative who has, or had, Diabetes. I prefer to label Type 2 diabetes as ‘insulin-resistant diabetes’ only because many people with it might be able to manage the disease with exercise, diet, and lifestyle changes. Insulin-resistant diabetes can even have a timeframe, early in the development of the disease (called ‘pre-diabetes’), when a person can ultimately (hopefully) erradicate the effects of the disease by simply changing what they eat, how much they eat, and with increasing their exercise. Insulin-dependent diabetes does NOT have an escape. It does not matter how much I change my diet or lifestyle, I will always be dependent upon insulin until the day I die.

Everyone (and I do mean EVERYONE) with insulin-resistant diabetes gets sick in their adulthood. Okay, wait . . . this might not truly be an honest statement. Especially with the increase in childhood obesity, because it is obesity, and sedentary habits, that are the crux of becoming an insulin-resistant individual. With obesity comes the body’s inability to utilize insulin correctly. The pancreas still merrily produces enough insulin to cover the body’s needs, but the cells become unable to use the insulin correctly. The simple explanation that comes in all the literature explaining Diabetes is that food is converted into glucose, which is the fuel that keeps our body and brain functioning. Cells need to use the glucose that ends up in our bloodstream to work. Period. Without glucose our body begins to fail and we die. Period. The problem with insulin-resistance is that the cells become unable to take in the fuel they need because insulin is the ‘key’ that unlocks the cell to allow glucose in. The cells are ‘resistant’ to the insulin produced by the body.

There, that is as technical as I’m going to get right now. To reiterate, insulin-resistance is when the pancreas produces insulin that the body’s cells are unable to use properly and the person gets sick. With the help of medication, an insulin-resistant person can begin to utilize the insulin within their body and become healthier. Exercise helps cells to utilize insulin. The more exercise, the less resistance.

Insulin-dependence is very different. First, the problem does not start with our lifestyle or body-type. Insulin-dependence begins when the immune system attacks the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. The pancreas, in time, becomes unable to produce enough insulin for our bodies to stay alive. Before the discovery of insulin in the early 1920s, insulin-dependent (Type 1) diabetes was 100% fatal. It is an auto-immune disease, which insulin-resistant (Type 2) diabetes is not. It makes no difference how obese we are or how little we exercise. The unavoidable fact is that our pancreas NO LONGER PRODUCES INSULIN. Period. Without insulin we die. Period.

Now the explanation begins to become more complicated, and I’m not going to go deeply into details today, but there are soooo many more factors involving Diabetes then the two very simplified explanations that I’ve just provided. For one thing, there are more than two types of diabetes, the most other widely encountered version being gestational diabetes. But none of those versions affect me and how I manage to live with my diabetes. The two explanations I’ve provided above are the basic building blocks to begin understanding the manifestation of my diabetes, which, let’s be honest, is the whole point of this blog in the first place.

MY diabetes is labeled as Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults (LADA). I have not been ‘officially’ diagnosed with LADA. My official diagnosis is Type 1 Diabetes (insulin-dependent). I was mis-diagnosed as Type 2 in the beginning because of my age being 32. Like I said earlier, it is adults who become sick with Type 2. Insulin-dependent diabetes used to have the more commonly known name of ‘juvenile diabetes’ because it was ALWAYS children who became sick with an autoimmune disease causing insulin-dependence. Juvenile-onset diabetes happens quickly. Within a matter of months, or even weeks, parents will watch their young child become lethargic, skinny, and sick. It is that first trip to the Emergency Room when they learn that their child is now diabetic and needs to manage being on insulin for the rest of their life. It is as close to a death sentance you can honestly receive while still being alive.

***Here’s the kicker: insulin is needed to stay alive, but take too much (just a drop too much) and you run the risk of seizure, coma, and death.***

The problem with Diabetes is that it allows your blood glucose levels to rise too high. Too much glucose floating around in the bloodstream will begin to destroy certain physiological structures. The most commonly kown side-effect of ‘diabetes’ is losing a foot. Or any appendage. High blood sugar destroys blood vessels. It restricts the ability for blood to flow in a healthy manner to the extremities. Amputations are a ‘common’ complication of Diabetes. High blood sugar can also cause blindness, heart disease, kidney failure, liver dysfunction, etc., etc. Since my diagnosis, I have noticed a distinct reduction in my ability to heal a simple cut on my leg without creating a nasty looking scar.

I need to wrap up my beginning of this chapter for today because I need to go home and get my fiddle ready to go to my friend’s house for a pleasant night of recitals and dinner. But I want to leave you with this one idea to ponder until tomorrow when I have time to finish this chapter: I have described two very different types of diseases that share a common name, but have distinctly different origins. One is a disease of the metabolism, while the other is autoimmune. Both of these diseases are deadly. Both can cause great and tremendous bodily harm. Both are emotionally traumatic to be diagnosed with. Both need constant and diligent attention to detail in order to manage living a ‘healthy’ life. They are different, but they are the same.

Tomorrow I will share some of the traits that both versions of Diabetes have in common, and how those commonalities affect me and my ability to learn how to survive living with insulin-dependent diabetes.

Have a wonderful evening!

one life to Live

On August 12, 2018August 12, 2018 By ZephyrIn diabetes diagnosis, Diabetic Complications, Diabetic Lifestyle, hospital visit, hypoglycemia, Type 1 Diabetes1 Comment

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.

Does it Show?

On June 19, 2018June 19, 2018 By ZephyrIn diabetes diagnosis, Diabetic Lifestyle, Type 1 Diabetes, Type 1.5 Diabetes, Type LADA, Uncategorized3 Comments

Wawona Point with Half Dome in the background

This was me (on the left) ten years ago. Before I knew my pancreas was no longer working. I look at myself now and I can see the disease. I can see how thin I was. At the time, I figured I was losing weight because I had been hiking and carrying a large pack all summer. This was the end of the season, and the couple and I had spent three days hiking to Little Yosemite Valley as a base camp for a one day summit of Half Dome. This picture was taken at Wawona Point where we had left the cars parked.

A friend (who has Lyme’s Disease, has restricted her gluten intake, and seen a drastic reduction in her body’s inflammation) said to me yesterday, “I can tell when I look at someone that they have inflammation and are swollen, just like I bet you can see if someone is diabetic.”

I love my friend. But I wanted to slap her for saying, and believing, something so incredibly stupid. Instead, I sighed and chose a response that wasn’t as snarky as my first impulse (“Yeah, right, because we all wear a bright fucking neon D across our foreheads”)– I said, “I can’t tell if someone is diabetic unless I see them pull out a pancreas from their pocket.”

Simple, right? Sometimes it amazes me, and strikes me silent, when people share their

deep ignorance of diabetes. I have personally only met FIVE other people in my life who I know are Type 1, and only two were on a pump. I randomly met the two people on pumps at a coffee shop and a bar here in Eugene during the past two years. They both were incredibly gratifying encounters. I dated a man a few years before I was diagnosed and I knew he was Type 1, but I never saw him take a shot. In fact, I only saw him check his blood once when we were stuck in traffic on a long road trip. I knew he carried his glucometer with him (I didn’t know that was what it was called) because he carried it in an old leather cigar case he had found, and I simply knew he always had that case with him. In the six months I dated him I never learned anything more about his diabetes. It never occurred to me that it meant anything.

I forgive my friend. She has no need to understand diabetes to the depth that I am required to. Her ignorance is my fault for not asking her to become more aware and educated when talking to me about my disease. I’ve done some cursory reading on the internet about her disease, and I ask her questions, but mostly I let her rant when she feels overwhelmed by the loneliness, anger, fear, and anxiety (that I am intimately familiar with from my own experiences) which accompanies a life-altering diagnosis.

I have struggled from the very beginning to control my blood sugar levels. When I first started my diabetic journey, I would hear healthcare professionals call me “uncontrolled.” I hate, HATE, HATE that label. With a passion! I was personally offended every time I heard it because the only thought I had was:

“F*CK YOU! I am doing EVERYTHING I possibly F*CKING can to control this F*CKING disease. How dare you suggest I don’t control my health!?!?!”

I have come to realize that I prefer to be labeled as “brittle” or “labile.” It is important, I think, to realize and consciously accept the labels we choose to live with. The thoughts we think, and the feelings that support those thoughts, are the reality we experience.

I am not perfect. Not even close. I just shared a post on Facebook that stated, “World’s Okayest Diabetic.” Some days I do better than other days,

Usually I try to not go so high, but it obviously happens

but every single day, without fail, I am always intensely aware of the fact that I am diabetic, and it won’t go away, and I have no choice except how I choose to take care of myself. One of the earliest lifestyle changes I made was to not tell myself I “couldn’t” eat something, but to bargain with myself instead. If there are cookies at work and I want one, I simply have to forgo that pizza I thought I would have for dinner. Some nights I will even choose to eat cookies and have pizza for dinner! My mother raised a rebel!!

I do work very hard to keep my numbers as close to 120 as I can. It is a struggle that I wish I could walk away from. It is a way of life that I wish I did not have to live. It is a regimen of restrictions that I resent and sometimes refuse to acknowledge. But the truth is always the same: I am diabetic. I am insulin dependent. I am disabled.

I am in the process of trying to request what I consider to be “reasonable requests for accommodation” at work based upon my disability of having a defunct pancreas. Mostly, I am hoping to emerge from under the oppression of being rumored as a bitch at work because people in other departments don’t know I am diabetic, nor do my bosses understand the extent of which my diabetes can affect my personality when my blood sugars are fluctuating. Like I said earlier, I have always been extremely brittle. My immediate boss simply believed the rumors of what a bitch I was because he knew I was on the pump and that was supposed to “cure” my diabetes. I had no idea he thought I was “cured.”

I live a life that makes me happy. It isn’t the life I thought I would be living when I was thirty. Nor does it resemble anything like the life I thought I would be living when I was twenty. Instead, it is the life I find myself living now that I am forty. I play soccer, drink beer, camp under the stars, eat out with friends, ride a bike everyday, grow my garden, practice my fiddle, and learn new ways of dealing with the depression that hounds me because of the diabetes. Everyday is an opportunity to learn something new about myself. Not everyone has the chance to test their willingness to stay alive and healthy. For most people it is a default. They simply have to wake up and get dressed and make it to work. There are no life and death moments in their daily existence. They know they are alive and that they will remain alive for at least the next twenty-four hours. It is not a struggle for them. I envy those people. But, at the same time, I wouldn’t trade places with them even if it meant having a pancreas that likes me enough to do its job on its own.

New Start to an Old Life

On June 9, 2018June 9, 2018 By ZephyrIn climbing, diabetes diagnosis, Diabetic Lifestyle, Type 1 Diabetes, Type 1.5 Diabetes3 Comments

Eleven years ago, I was working as a mountain guide while living in Yosemite National Park. I led backpacking trips, as well as day trips to the summit of Half Dome, and I spent almost every day off climbing on granite. I also happened to be slowly starving to death because of uncontrolled high blood sugar levels.

Taking a break on Royal Arches in Yosemite Valley

My very first A1C was 16.7% and now (as of April 2018) my A1C is 7.6%.

I was living in Las Vegas during the winter of 2007-2008 waiting for the new guiding season to begin when I was diagnosed. You would think (if you know anything about diabetes) that with an A1C as high as 16.7% that I would have been to the doctor at least once with some kind of complaint or another. But it wasn’t until my mom came to Vegas for a visit, and we went to the Bellagio for a buffet breakfast, that I finally was knocked off my feet enough to convince me to seek medical care.

I had dropped from a size 8 down to a loose-fitting size 4 by the time I was too sick to stay awake for longer than ten minutes at a time. I had simply assumed that my time spent hiking in Yosemite carrying a pack weighing around 50-60 lbs during the previous summer had been enough of a workout to accomplish the significant weight loss. I can

still vividly remember the nights spent in the backcountry feeling as if there was a vast and bottomless void in my stomach. I have never felt so incredibly hungry and un-satiated after eating as I did during those few months. I would dream about food and wake up in the mornings feeling cramped from being so hungry. But, I thought, of course I’m hungry. I’ve hiked at least 8-12 miles everyday and am carrying a backpack heavier than a third grader. It’s not strange for me to be this hungry. I just have to keep eating everything I can get my hands on. Especially yummy white rice and noodles!

My winter days spent climbing and working in Vegas did nothing to help me reclaim the lost weight. My clothes were steadily becoming looser and hanging off of my hips for the first time in my life. I LOVED being thin! I remember one morning waking up at my

boyfriend’s house after he and his roommates had left for work, eating an entire box of donuts, and not feeling the slightest bit sick–just hungry. Thinking back now, I have to wonder: how could I have felt any sicker than I already was, when I wasn’t even aware of how sick I actually was?

The intriguing uniqueness of my particular type of diabetes (Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults) is that it is very slow to progress. When other Type 1 diabetics start to become sick, it is usually a swift and obvious progression of symptoms that sends them to the hospital immediately (it also usually happens in early childhood or adolescence). It wasn’t that I ignored my health. It was simply that because my health was deteriorating so slowly over the years, my symptoms became normalized without my awareness. It was normal for me to not be able to stay awake throughout an entire movie. It was so normal, in fact, that my friends were perfectly aware of the fact

that I would never stay awake, and it was accepted as normal by everyone I spent time with that I would eventually wind up curled on the couch or in a chair and fall asleep, even at a party. It was also normal for me to drink water continuously and not go an hour or so without having to pee.

It wasn’t until after that buffet breakfast (the last buffet I will ever attend) at the Bellagio with my mom, that my symptoms finally became obvious and severe enough to send me to Urgent Care. We had only walked a few blocks from the hotel to go shopping when I began to feel nauseous. I finally had to turn around and go back to my mom’s hotel room to rest and wait for her return. I threw up three times on the short walk back to the hotel. Once I crawled into her bed, I wasn’t able to stay awake long enough to finish watching an entire sitcom episode on the T.V. In fact, we had to turn on the television just so I was able to focus on a show and manage to stay awake for more than ten minutes at a time. We thought it was a vicious virus and we tried to manage my nausea with crackers and orange juice. Nothing stayed down, and I wasn’t staying awake.

The Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne in Yosemite National Park

Finally, my mom made the decision to take me to Urgent Care (which was the first of many mistakes in my experience of being diabetic) and I learned of my condition when the doctor looked at me in disdain and contemptuously said, “you know you’re diabetic, right?”

“I do now,” was the only reply I could painfully manage.

I was immediately misdiagnosed as Type 2 because of my 32 years of age. It never occurred to the Urgent Care doctor to ask about my family history of diabetes (of which there is NONE) and I was never diagnosed as being in Diabetic Ketoacidosis (which I am now fully aware was my prognosis in hindsight, due to the two other times I have been properly diagnosed since). I was simply pumped full of two bags of saline and sent home with an appointment to begin oral treatment in a couple days.

I spent almost a month taking Metformin and some other pill that was supposed to lower my blood sugars. I read the literature explaining how to measure proper serving sizes of carbohydrates. I measured a handful of rice twice a day and ate nothing else but vegetables. Like I said, I was never one to simply ignore my health. Yet, my blood sugars

never went below 300. Finally, the Type 2 doctor I was seeing put me on 40 units of Lantus to be taken before bed. The pharmacist at the Target I went to fulfill my prescription for the insulin, and a box of syringes, asked me if I had ever injected myself before. I looked at him in terror and mutely shook my head. Luckily, he took pity on me and took a syringe out of the box to show me how to do the impossible.

***A quick side note: to give you an idea of how much syringes petrified me, let me tell you a short story. My mom was in the Navy and just before my senior year of high school she was transferred to a small island in the Aleutian chain of Alaska. I was living with my dad at the time, but decided to live with her for the first semester of school so I could experience the great white north. Before we could leave the lower 48, however, I needed a vaccine. I remember sitting in the waiting room in the Navy hospital surrounded by mothers with young children and infants all waiting for their own vaccines. When it was my turn, and I was in the exam room, the doctor told me to relax. I was so stressed at the knowledge that I was about to be poked in the arm with a needle that I unintentionally yelled, “WHY?!?” The doctor sighed and told me I was too tense. So, I replied (loudly) “OKAY!” At seventeen years of age, I was so scared of a small needle that my shouts, from within the exam room with a closed door, had scared every child and baby in the waiting room, and they were ALL crying when I came out five minutes later.***

What happened the very first time I gave myself an injection of insulin now makes me smile with a feeling of carefree acceptance that has only been earned through the experience of eight and a half years of diligently injecting myself with needles at least five times a day…every day. I stood in my kitchen in Las Vegas, bare feet cold on the tile floor, and held the carefully prepared syringe in my right hand. My left hand held a pinch of skin on my belly, and I stood there looking at the syringe in my hand, waiting for the courage to stab myself on purpose. Finally, finally, I was able to jab myself in my stomach with my very first syringe and the shock of the event caused me to let go of everything and stick my hands up into the air. I chuckle every time I think of how that syringe looked sticking out of my stomach, jiggling slightly as I shook with dread from what I had just accomplished.

What I cannot smile, or chuckle about, is the memory of how I wound up that night (and

the next four nights) crawling into the kitchen at three in the morning and sitting on that cold tile floor eating an entire box of cereal with violently shaking hands, and the same devastating hunger that had haunted me on my backpacking trips the previous summer. With the initial prescription for insulin, the Type 2 doctor had also provided me with a referral to see an endocrinologist in six weeks. After the second night of using Lantus I called the endo’s office to ask if they could fit me in sooner because, as I told the receptionist, “something is horribly wrong and I’m scared.”

I was told there was an opening that Thursday and was asked if I wanted it. I have never been so enthusiastic, or relieved, as I was at that exact moment when I answered YES!!

I remember the day of that first endocrinologist appointment being a Thursday because it also happened to be May 21, which was my 33^rd birthday. I learned I would be dependent on insulin every day for the rest of my life and, as much as I hated that fact (and still do), it was also the best present the Universe could ever have given me—because the endocrinologist properly prescribed me to take FOUR units of Lantus in the evening before going to sleep. The greatest birthday gift I have ever received in my life was the opportunity to STAY ALIVE.

End of a long day hiking in Yosemite National Park before being diagnosed

Needless to say, I do NOT like Urgent Care units…or Type 2 doctors.

The LADA Diva

Category: diabetes diagnosis

Day 4: Diabetes (part 1)

one life to Live

Does it Show?

New Start to an Old Life