Category: hyperglycemia

Red — Sexual Harassment

On By ZephyrIn Diabetic Lifestyle, gender discrimination, hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia, Liberation, Pool, racism, sexism, and other isms, sexual harassment, Type 1 DiabetesLeave a comment

Red and I did not speak about the text he had sent me on that Sunday morning after the work Christmas party. I figured it was a moot point. I assumed we would never talk about it and go about our lives as if the incident had never occurred. At least, that was my hope. A few days after the first text, Red sent me an innocuous text informing me that he would not be attending some social gathering a group of people from work had planned. I did not respond for the simple reason that I did not want to engage with Red on any level. He had been keeping his distance at work as well, and I felt safe believing his attraction would wither and die out in time.

A few days later, though, I received another text from Red:

Have you thought about inviting me over? I can make you feel real good. I know how to treat you like a real man should.

I remember this text because, immediately after I read it, I decided to get stars tattooed on my hands. It was an impulsive decision, but I desperately felt the need to do something that celebrated my independence from expectations placed upon me from external sources. The guy in the tattoo shop was initially reticent about tattooing me in such an exposed area. His comment, “hand tattoos can kill jobs,” was met with my own quip, “what jobs?” He laughed, shrugged, and commenced to design the stars that are forevermore prominent whenever I reach out into my external world.

The text Red sent me was again in the early morning and I sat at the library, waiting for the tattoo shop to open, while composing my response to him. This time, I was not willing to let the incident go without challenge because I wanted it to STOP. I do not remember my exact words, but I do remember bluntly informing Red that I did not appreciate his disrespect for me by not accepting my previous answer of NO when he asked me if I was willing to be more than friends. I told him in no uncertain terms that I was angry with him for reducing our friendship to sex, and that I was absolutely NOT interested in him. I graciously informed him I would not tell anyone at work about his pressuring me, but that I did not want to be friends anymore. I told him to please stop texting me, that I was willing to work peacefully with him, but I wanted this situation to be dropped. His reply was simple: “Sorry. I misunderstood.”

It was at this point when I began to realize how I might have misled him by answering “yes” to his question about feeling the attraction when he had trapped me in the back office. From my experiences over the years since this moment in time, I can now easily recognize how mindlessly I had internalized my perceived role of what it meant to be ‘feminine’ and ‘polite’ and ‘nice.’ Even as I began to realize my mistake, I felt guilty for having caused the “misunderstanding.” I honestly believed I was partly at fault for what was happening to me. I knew Red was acting like an asshole, but I did not find the fault to be entirely his. Instead, based on my social conditioning, I believed his divorce was to blame, or his drinking, or his pain and distress, or conversely it was my lack of maturity, or my inability to respond effectively to his comments, or my inadequacy in how to handle a situation where a man shows more interest in me than I am comfortable with.

****Please notice how each one of those excuses above focuses either upon Red, as a man, being influenced by negative circumstances, or upon me, as a woman, who is in some way defective or inferior. THIS IS THE RESULT OF BEING BORN AND RAISED WITHIN A CULTURE THAT ASSIGNS MORE VALUE TO A MAN THEN TO A WOMAN. These cultural beliefs hurt women and I am sharing my understanding of how it hurt me.****

At the time, I only told two people at the pool about what had happened. A year or so later, I also ended up telling Bill Kuzmer and Luke, one of the younger lifeguards who worked with Red, because they both asked me why I was no longer friends with Red. Luke eventually ended up taking sides with Red and I lost my friendship with him as well, but he was the young lifeguard who Red had been selling weed to during the early mornings while upstairs in the staff breakroom. The early morning Building Supervisor had told Fryer her concerns about Red and Luke, but Fryer never did anything about the situation. At least, to give him the benefit of the doubt, he never did anything that anyone else on staff could easily recognize as being an action taken against the possibility of drugs being sold on the Park District’s premises.

Luke eventually lost his job as the early morning Building Supervisor a year or so later, after he was arrested for possession of cocaine, but I do believe it was because he quit. He was rehired again some time later, but he quit that time, too. I do not believe he was ever threatened with the loss of his employment, but I do not know. This may seem like an unfounded rumor, but it was only last summer while working with a younger lifeguard, who had been a swimmer on the high school team and was now in college, when the old story came up again in our conversation. He told me during an early morning Saturday shift about Red selling marijuana illegally to someone at the pool years ago. I asked him how he knew about it and he told me that his mom, who had heard it from Bill Kuzmer, had told him. This is exactly how information at the pool is officially shared and communicated: Gossip and Rumormongering.

Bill Kuzmer, on the other hand, simply agreed with me that what Red had said was disturbing, but he never provided me with any advice on how to proceed dealing with the situation. When Fryer finally got around to investigating what had occurred and asked Bill if he knew anything about me and Red, Bill replied, “he asked Sam out on a date and she said no.” At the time, though, when Bill agreed with me that Red’s behavior had been inappropriate, I took this to be validation for being justified in my anger towards Red, and my choice to avoid him at all cost.

My mom would tell me that I needed to tell Fryer about the texts, but I had erased all of the texts. I honestly expected if given enough time, then the situation would resolve itself by simply going away. I was not capable of recognizing what had happened to me as being Sexual Harassment. I had always been taught that Sexual Harassment happened when a boss told you to do something sexual and you were fired for saying NO. I thought Sexual Harassment was nudie pictures on the wall, being called “babe” at work, having my ass grabbed or my tits pinched. I did not understand how being stared at could be a form of Sexual Harassment, and was illegal.

For the next three years, I worked six days a week with Red, and I performed my shifts with an ever-increasing knot of dread, disgust, anger, and frustration growing more solidly within my heart whenever I would catch Red looking at me with his glassy eyes. Every time Red was in the water teaching a lesson, he would find a way to be underneath the guard stand and he would stare up at me. Every single day. Every time I was in the water teaching a swim lesson, I would look up and see Red standing above me on the deck and discussing my teaching techniques with someone else, many times he would be speaking with Fryer. I became so incredibly distressed and uncomfortable wearing my bathing suit at work, that I felt to be blessed with a miracle when I finally switched from syringe therapy to a pump, and could no longer spend time in the water being disconnected from my insulin. The extreme discomfort I felt every time I caught Red staring up at me taught me how to conduct my lifeguard scan while effectively managing to NOT make eye contact with anyone in the pool. It was during these three years when I lost my ability to smile, and show joy and gratitude with the people in my life, and at my job. Three years of being gripped by the detrimental effects of such negative emotions are the basis for my claim of having suffered through undiagnosed PTSD.

During those three years I tried to work through my emotions without professional help. I had been required to speak to therapists while growing up and I came away from those experiences feeling as if the specialists were only good at making me feel worse about myself then I felt before even walking in the door. I struggled with the volatile combination of anger, disgust, and resentment and tried to find a way of simply going to work and not being consumed by my emotional turmoil.

There was one day when Red decided to confront me in the back office to demand that I stop ignoring him. I can still distinctly feel the intense acrimony and rancor I felt as I tried to maintain my dignity and simply told him to leave me alone. I used to teach a classroom full of seventh graders, so I know how to be a broken record repeating the exact same instructions over and over and over again until something finally manages to penetrate the thickest skull. Red intensified his demands to the point of scaring the other staff away, but all I could do was stand in place and tell him over and over and over again, “NO means NO!” until he finally walked away.

This period in time was also the beginning of the severe and pervasive harassment I have received from the administration of the Park District. It began with Fryer ambushing me in the back office, much in the same way Red had done earlier, to tell me about some new complaint he had received about my attitude. I was never given the exact nature of the complaint, a name of who was complaining, or any kind of description as to what I was actually doing wrong. So, not only was I trying to deal with the destructive emotional leftover from my experience with Sexual Harassment, but now I had paranoia being incorporated into my daily perspective of life, and of myself. I lost the chance to develop stronger friendships at work because I was perpetually terrified that anytime I spoke with someone I may be offending them, and I would get another reprimand from Fryer. During this time, I simply stayed away from the people who could have helped me. Hindsight is always 20/20, and it is only with hindsight I can truly appreciate the extent to which I allowed myself to be isolated and ‘cut off from the herd,’ as to become easier prey.

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The only other time in my life I have had such adverse repercussions for my ‘attitude’ was while I was living and working in Las Vegas before my diagnosis. I was angry all the time. The slightest incident would send me reeling into a fit of vitriol. Cognitively, I was able to recognize the absurdity of my quick temper and intolerance, but that did nothing to alleviate the anguish of always feeling and being angry. One night, I even came home from work and grabbed the yellow pages to spend the evening looking up every therapist, psychologist, and psychiatrist I could find, in the hopes of learning what was wrong with me so I could fix it. Luckily (Ha! That’s a good pun), I was soon diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and I learned the anger came from severe and persistent hyperglycemia, which is curable with the administration of insulin.

Unfortunately, beginning regular injections of insulin does not cure the long-standing effects of hyperglycemia immediately. In fact, the very action of insulin dropping my blood sugars to more acceptable levels (or even lower into the hypoglycemic range) also became an instigator for foul-tempered mood swings. After the first year of trying to live with Diabetes, I finally made the choice to leave my job in Vegas and move back to Eugene. I wanted to work at the pool with the people who I trusted would support me through the transition into my new insulin-dependent life. My greatest hope was to have the opportunity to learn how to manage and control my formidable glucose-influenced emotional rollercoaster in a safe and friendly environment.

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During the three years after Red sent the texts, I would also receive complaints from patrons about my behavior and attitude. At the time, I did not necessarily take all of the patron complaints seriously because I recognized many of them as coming from individuals who were associated with Red, either from his role as a swim instructor or as one of the swim coaches. I know for a fact Red encouraged one of his private lessons to write a letter of complaint about me, and to drop it off at the main office, because the early morning Building Supervisor, who was a good friend of mine, overheard Red and told me about it.

Yet, I still did not consider telling any of this to Fryer. My years of association with Fryer had taught me that it is seldom worth the backlash of bringing a problem to Fryer that bothers him, because he will only take his frustration out on the messenger, and rarely do anything to solve the root problem. I believed there was no point in telling Fryer about what was happening unless I told him the whole story about the texts (which I had foolishly erased), and tried to explain how Red made me feel by looking at me. I simply was incapable of breaking past the wall of silence I had constructed, or the feelings of shame and embarrassment, to complain about something that seemed so minor—until I was conclusively pushed into action by the impetus of being verbally assaulted by Red at work.

Dale Weigandt, the Park District Superintendent, ultimately became involved the day I had to sit upstairs with him and Fryer and be told about a nasty letter that had been sent anonymously to the main office accusing me of shouting at and attacking patrons and coworkers. I remember feeling horrified—and being absolutely positive that the letter had been written and sent by Red. Dale told me that he did not put much faith or credibility into anything said by someone anonymously, that he believed such people to be cowards, but that the problem of my behavior and attitude was becoming unacceptable.

If I were to be ambushed by this particular meeting again, as the person I am today and after having learned all that I have in the past three years, I would say to Dale and Fryer, “Why are you bringing this letter to my attention at all? If you give no credence to the cowardly rantings of a person not willing to share their name, then WHY are you sharing it with me?!? How can you possibly sit there trying to convince me that you have no assurances of the validity of an anonymous claim, yet you use it as a way to blame me for the very accusations that the anonymous letter is describing?!” But, as we all know, I was not smart enough, or brave enough, to stand up and speak out for my rights at that point in time. NOW, however, is a much different story!

I did not share my suspicions about the nascency of the anonymous letter to Dale or Fryer. It felt, at the time, as if it would simply turn into a session of ‘he said/she said’ and that is a particular game I have never had any interest in playing, with anyone, for any reason. I was smart enough, at the time, to instinctually know I would never have a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning that game. I may not have been able to articulate my instinct at the time, but I do believe the intervening years have since given me the ability to critically analyze and better understand the social construction of Sexism, which gradually became the dominant discrimination encasing my experiences at the pool concerning my invisible disability.

I can’t elucidate my reluctance to inform Fryer and Dale about my experiences with Red any further. Mostly what I remember is just wanting it to all go away. I didn’t want to talk about it, to think about it, to describe what had happened, or to somehow exasperate the situation even more. I did not believe that divulging my problem to Fryer would somehow help me. At the time I was worried that telling would simply make the situation worse. I did not want to confront Red. I just wanted him to leave me alone!

day 5: ***MY diabetes***

On By ZephyrIn Diabetic Complications, Diabetic Ketoacidosis, Diabetic Lifestyle, hospital visit, hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia, insulin-dependence, invisible disability, Type 1 Diabetes, Type 1.5 Diabetes, Type LADALeave a comment

Diabetes.

I wonder what my life would be like today if I did not have diabetes.

I would be employed. If diabetes had never entered into my existence I would most likely be employed as a middle school Social Studies teacher either somewhere in the Bay Area (probably Oakland) or in Reno. I would work during the school year, volunteer my time helping my community, climb in the local gym with my friends, and climb outside on the weekends with those same friends. That was the life I expected to create when I first moved to the South Bay Area in 2003. As a result of the opportunities I experienced while living in the South Bay, there is a good chance I would still be working as a mountain guide in southern Yosemite during the summer seasons as well.

I think I would be married. In fact, I know who my soul mate was that I should’ve had children with, but Life tore that possibility away from me with more devastation than simple diabetes. I will live the duration of my life with conviction about the primordial axiom: LIFE IS NEVER FAIR.

Those are the two biggest sacrifices I believe I have had to make because of my diabetes: career and family. Instead, I find myself having to imagine a new life for my future. Diabetes effectively killed my ability to begin a career in education during my early thirties. Now, in my early forties, I find myself struggling to want the same life I had imagined over a decade ago. The life I want to live now centers around the mandatory routines I must perform in order to feel healthy and to have the physiological capacity to accomplish the routines of daily life.

My diabetes has never been easy to manage. All the facts listed about diabetes in the medical literature sometimes fail to be accurate in my personal experience.

Last January, I was in the hospital for Diabetic Ketoacidosis caused by Influenza. It was a condition where my blood glucose levels had become so high they made me very sick. I spent two nights and two days in the ICU until my glucose levels were brought back down into range, and the dangerous ketones in my blood were flushed out of my system. By evening of the second day, a bed finally opened up and I was transferred to a room in the main ward, with the expectation that I would be released from the hospital in a couple of days.

I closed my eyes that night believing I would sleep, wake up, eat breakfast, talk to my doctor, and then get well enough to leave the hospital the next day. Instead, I woke up around 1:00 in the morning feeling sick from high blood sugar. My nurse came and, after checking my blood sugar, we learned that it had risen above 250 (100-120 is considered to be a ‘bull’s eye’ target range for us diabetics). Blood sugar levels, according to the medical literature, rise only when carbohydrates are eaten (the medical community has only recently begun to understand the connections between glucose levels and stress). I had not eaten anything and my stress levels were lowered because of the treatment I believed I was receiving. So, why was my blood sugar steadily climbing? Why was my liver kicking out glucose into my system while I was peacefully sleeping? These are questions no one has ever been able to answer for me.

What I do know is what happened next:

My nurse called the nighttime on-call doctor to get permission for administering insulin to lower my glucose levels. My nurse was amazing! He did everything in his power to try and help me. In fact, my nurse was a Type 1 as well (diagnosed at the age of 27) who was using a pump. He knew exactly what I was suffering through. He even mentioned how much he wished he could just give me some of his insulin to help, because the nighttime on-call doctor NEVER called back to give permission for my glucose levels to be lowered to a healthier level. We never learned why. No one ever told me why I was allowed to lay in my hospital bed, the first night out of the ICU for DKA caused by high blood sugar, and have to suffer through the sickness of having my blood sugar climbing uncontrollably. By shift change at 7am, my day nurse arrived in time to hand me my second vomit bag for the morning because I was uncontrollably nauseous–AGAIN!

The daytime doctor finally arrived to begin her workday and managed to prescribe me some corrective insulin, but I was now required to stay in the hospital another night because my blood sugars were out of range. Also, by this time, my electrolytes were wacked and needed to be replaced. I was put on a magnesium drip that was expected to finish in a few hours, but it burned so bad going into my arms I could only handle the pain for an hour or so at a time. We were constantly moving the IV between my arms. It was the first time I have ever needed to have more than one IV. I finally managed to finish the magnesium bag by the end of the day.

I spent two more days in the hospital because my doctors were incapable of bringing my blood sugar levels down into an ‘acceptable’ range. I was not able to administer my own insulin intake because my pump resevoir was empty (a mistake I will never make again!) and I was reliant upon the doctors to administer the ‘correct’ amount of insulin for my health needs. The problem with relying upon doctors is that they follow the ‘established medical guidelines’ as to how much insulin to administer. Again, the problem being that I do not always fit into the ‘acceptable target range’ of what the doctors expect from Diabetes. The amounts of insulin they were providing me with were simply insufficient to the task of lowering my glucose levels.

***Here is the crux of my agitation with the medical community: they are terrified of insulin! My doctors were so afraid of administering too much insulin, and dropping me into hypoglycemia, that they were simply unwilling to listen to ME and give me the amounts that I KNEW to be what I needed!***

I feel justified in making this statement: I KNOW MORE ABOUT MY DIABETES THAN THE DOCTORS EVER WILL.

I don’t remember my second night on the ward, but I do remember my blood sugars never lowering into range during my second day spent in that ward. My third night, however, was spent with a different nurse and I remember this night very well. By this time my doctor had left a standing order for insulin to be administered when needed. My new nurse was not a native english speaker. I freely admit I pushed her for the right to determine how much insulin I was administered. When I ate dinner that night, I estimated the carb count for my meal and entered the numbers into my pump for the Wizard program to do the math. The hospital menu I was allowed to order from (as a diabetic) had the carb count of each item listed. As a diabetic, I was allowed to only order so many carbs at a time. I ignored the damn menu’s carb count. It did not match the estimate of carbs that I had learned to make over the years by looking at the food I was going to eat in front of me, and then determining how each item of food may affect my blood sugars from past experience. I told my nurse to give me the amount of insulin suggested by my pump. I had to round the number up to the next whole amount because syringes are incapable of providing the small amounts of insulin the precision of a pump can deliver.

My next blood check was two hours after I ate and my number was not too high. The nurse wanted to wait another three hours before checking again, but I told her to come back in an hour before I went to sleep. I was not using my own test strips because I only had two left (another mistake I will never make again!) and I needed them for the ride home once I would be allowed to leave the hospital. In an hour my blood sugar had dropped to 75, which is close to technically being labeled as hypoglycemia, but is also typical in my daily life experience. I asked the nurse for some ’emergency’ carbs and she brought me two pieces of toast and some peanut butter. I could tell how nervous she was from my blood sugar being so low. Maybe she was simply worried because she had allowed me to tell her how much insulin to administer rather than giving me the amount the doctor expected for the meal I ate, but I am used to this nervous reaction from medical professsionals when confronted with a glucose level ‘too low’ for their comfort.

Knowing my diabetes as intimately as I do, I knew only one piece of toast with peanut butter would be sufficient. The nurse was worried that I didn’t eat the second piece, but I comforted her by telling her I would keep the toast next to my bed in case I needed it later. Now that she knew I had corrrected my low with the ‘correct’ carbohydrates my nurse felt safe leaving me alone for the night. The doctor had required my blood to be checked every three hours, but I told her to come back in an hour and wake me up to check my blood again. I am not ashamed to admit I pushed the nurse again for my healthcare to be provided to me the way I needed it to be. And it was a good thing that I did push her because, within that single hour, my blood sugar had risen to 170 from a single slice of bread, and I needed to tell the nurse how much corrective insulin to administer. This time I was confident enough to let her wait the three hours to check my blood like the doctor had determined.

During the rest of the night my glucose stayed steady and in range. When I had my first check in the morning before the doctor came in I was at a beautiful and healthy 117! All because of my determination to ignore everything the doctor wanted to be done for me. Unfortunately, I had to remain in the hospital for the entire day because I allowed the doctor to make the determination for my insulin during the daylight hours. . . and my sugars never came back down into range after my first meal of the day. In fact, I only ate two small meals that entire day, and my glucose levels never reached my target range because of my doctors unwillingness to listen to me when I tried to tell her how much insulin I should be given.

By five o’clock that evening I firmly informed the doctor I was leaving the hospital despite her belief I should stay another night for observation. I told the doctor that the only time my blood sugar levels had been stable during my entire stay under her care had been during the previous night when I had been in complete control of my diabetes. This was not the first time I have had to call out a medical professional for treating diabetes as if it were a cookie-cutter disease that affects everyone in exactly the same way, nor do I expect it will be the last, but it was the first time I ever forcibly had to advocate for myself with the belief that I do know more than my doctor about how to manage MY diabetes.

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The life I now live is a Diabetic Life. It is the only life I will ever know for the rest of my life. I have no option to live any other kind of life. Diabetes is my lot in life. Fortunately for me, I am learning how to live my life as a healthy diabetic with my blood sugars under control. It was my nine years spent working at the pool that allowed me the opportunity to learn how my diabetic life would be able to work for me. Without my experiences at the pool forcing me to become more aware of the effects diabetes has upon my personality, I believe there are several emotional and behavioral manifestations of my diabetes, and the way it affects the people around me, that I would still be ignorant of and incapable of mitigating within my public and social spheres.

I am grateful for my experiences at the pool. I am a better person for having had to deal with all the struggles. I have a clearer understanding of who I am and what I need in order to be healthy. I have gained a secure level of self-confidence I do not believe I would be capable of without having had the experience of fighting for my survival in an environment of pervasive harassment. The pool created a crucible in which my comprehension of what it means to live a diabetic life led me to recognize and become aware of the hidden and confusing ways in which discrimination can manifest itself in our daily lives. Learning to navigate the various forms of gender and racial discrimination I face everyday as a black woman were nothing compared to the experience of being discriminated against because of my invisible disability. Simply coming to the realization that I am in actuality ‘disabled‘ was a trial of self-awareness I may never have accomplished without my experiences at the pool.

I am not sharing my story to hurt the pool, or the people still working there. My goal is nothing more than to make the pool a better place to work. I want the pool to be a place where a black woman with diabetes can safely work without being hassled by her bosses for being a ‘bitch.’ Period.