Life’s Unexpected Absurdities

On November 20, 2018November 20, 2018 By ZephyrIn diabetes, Diabetic Complications, Diabetic Lifestyle, hospital visit, hypoglycemia, hypoglycemic event, insulin-dependence, invisible disability, Pool, Type 1 Diabetes, Type 1.5 Diabetes, Type LADA2 Comments

A few years ago, we had a lap simmer at the pool who wound up floating face down in the water and not moving. It was my responsibility to blow my whistle and alert everyone to the emergency and jump into the water and rescue her. I remember rolling her over onto her back and noticing how grey her face was. We pulled her out of the water and commenced to perform CPR.

I had a bitch of a time trying to open her airway enough to actually accomplish blowing air into her lungs. As my coworkers performed compressions on her chest and attached the AED pads, I struggled to lift her neck high enough and pull her head back to get some air into her lungs. I think at one point I managed to blow air into her stomach, but I am still doubtful to this day that I ever managed to get air into her lungs. We later learned that the emergency doctors at the hospital had diagnosed her as being “morbidly obese” and this was the reason for my inability to effectively administer oxygen.

Fryer was the scheduled Building Supervisor, but he was busy performing his ‘daily hot tub inspection’ in the sauna outside. He never heard my whistle. He had no idea we were in the middle of a medical crisis and needed all hands- on deck. Those of us who were working hard to try and save this woman’s life in a timely manner had to send one of the water exercise instructors outside to fetch Fryer.

Fryer later recalled what his first thoughts were when the woman we sent to get him stood in the doorway of the sauna; he almost said to her, “either get in, or close the door,” but she finally managed to tell him there was an emergency inside. According to Fryer’s recollection, he sighed and made his way into the building he was being paid to supervise. The first thing he saw was every one of his employee’s being paid to work down on the opposite end of the pool performing CPR upon a patron. Fryer finally began helping the team after the AED administered a shock, after 911 had been called, and after the pool deck was cleared of patrons. Essentially, Fryer was able to make his way over and help me try to pry open her airway in the hope of providing her with the optimal chance of survival by providing her system with oxygen. Even with his help the attempt was unsuccessful.

Fryer did participate in a round of compressions, but without wearing personal protective equipment, which can be viewed as superfluous, but anyone with experience providing healthcare in a First Responder’s role knows how much emphasis is put on the need to protect one’s self as paramount in any situation. I felt offended at the time watching Fryer, and another long-time employee, performing compressions without wearing gloves. Particularly after this other employee had pushed me aside in order to perform the compressions. I mentioned his lack of gloves, but he ignored me as all of his concentration was upon the task of performing the compressions.

We were busy wiping liquids and flecks of what were later identified as tapioca pudding from the patron’s mouth as we tried to open it wide enough to accept receiving oxygen. After all the years of feeling anxious being tested by Fryer for my skills of performing CPR, First Aid and rescue techniques, and the way he would hammer home the need to always wear gloves, I felt almost betrayed by noticing what was missing, but being ignored when I tried to point it out to my ‘superiors.’

Our patron lived. The paramedics arrived and took over and eventually escorted her to the hospital. I remember feeling embarrassed watching my boss, who loves to tout the necessity of looking “professional” to all the new lifeguards every summer, standing in his bathing suit and talking to the paramedics. My belief in the merits of professionalism has never been in accordance with Fryer’s application of the concept. A few months later the woman was back and swimming laps in the pool again, this time with a continuous glucose monitor stuck to the back of her arm. But, with all being said and done, we did our job and we did it well. Fryer included. I do, after all, believe he did everything he could to the best of his ability.

My story does not end there, though.

My story continues with the next day finding me coming home after work and curling up in my chair to take a short nap. That short nap turned into a nightmare ending with me being in the emergency room until two in the morning.

My housemate came home a few hours after I sat in the chair to find me incoherent and mumbling. My memory is of having woken up hours later than I expected freezing in my chair and not being able to get up and grab my blanket. I remember my housemate walking in the room and asking me what was wrong. All I could manage was to try and tell him that I was cold and wanted the comforter from my bed (I remember trying to lift my arm to point towards my bedroom and failing). But he couldn’t understand me. He was smart enough to call the paramedics and I sat in my chair watching the blue and red flashing lights stop outside the window. It is the only time in my life (to this point) that I have had to have the paramedics called on me.

One of the paramedics rampaged my kitchen looking for carbohydrates they could feed me to help raise my blood sugar. To this day, I have no idea why he went into the cupboard and found the one hamburger bun someone had left behind from a barbeque the summer before. I cannot understand, for the life of me, why he did not hand me one of the three different kinds of granola bars I keep in the cupboard, or any of the dried fruit sitting next to the granola bars. Instead, the paramedic took the hamburger bun, an egg and a slice of cheese from the fridge, and then took the time to cook me a sandwich!

By this time, I had contacted a friend from work to give me a ride to the ER, and to alert someone I would not be going into work the next day. When she walked in through my kitchen door and saw the paramedic cooking an egg on my stove, she immediately recognized him and asked, “Hey! Want some bacon with that?”

That morning (yes, the morning of this exact same day), my friend had decided to cook some bacon for breakfast in her pajamas. Unfortunately, the smoke from her breakfast caused the smoke alarm to go off. Normally this is not a problem, and it wouldn’t have been this day also, but my friend failed to hear her cell phone ring when the alarm company called to check if the alarm was authentic or not. When the alarm company couldn’t reach my friend, they started calling her list of emergency contacts. The first two contacts didn’t answer for one reason or another. By the time the third person on the list was contacted, the alarm company had also dispatched the fire department.

My friend, having finished cooking the bacon and clearing most of the smoke out of her house, finally heard her phone ring. The third person on her emergency contact list had left work and was rushing to my friend’s home and calling with the desperate hope that it was all somehow a horrible mistake. Luckily the third contact was able to turn around and head back to work, but, as my friend laughed on the phone while standing in her smoky kitchen in her pajamas, she realized the sirens she heard in the distance coming closer were coming for her.

She managed to throw on her robe and meet the first responders at her front door. After she apologized for causing such a fuss by taking the time to cook bacon for breakfast, my friend offered the firemen some of her bacon. She went back inside to her kitchen only to confront both of her cats on the counter eating the last of the bacon.

We sat in my living room laughing about the absurdity of life as we all waited for my blood sugars to rise and stabilize. My friend finally took me to the hospital and stayed with me until the doctor cleared me. A simple hypoglycemic event such as mine (even though anything so serious should not be hallmarked as simple) should not have kept me in the ER for more than a couple of hours, but this trip was accompanied by an irregular heart rhythm that needed to be monitored. All I really remember from the night was having my friend continuously bring me new blankets from the dryer down the hall because I was so incredibly fricking cold!

Diabetes affects me in very unpredictable ways. It is only recently I have even begun to comprehend how strongly stress can affect my ability to manage my disease. The stress of saving a woman’s life the day before was enough to send me into a cascade event culminating in the need for paramedics to intervene. I am becoming better at learning how to manage my diabetes and maintain my health as much as possible, despite the stressful curve balls life enjoys hurling at me. It is a relief to know that a monumental element within my life, which used to contribute to my increased levels of stress, has finally been eradicated. I am quite positive that walking away from the pool has increased my expected lifespan by a couple of years. I am extremely grateful to be in a position where my health and well-being are the driving force behind my days, from the moment I wake up to the moment I close my eyes in exhaustion.

Discrimination is a ‘Bitch’

On November 19, 2018 By ZephyrIn diabetes, Diabetic Lifestyle, disability discrimination, gender discrimination, invisible disability, Liberation, Pool, sexual harassment, Type 1 Diabetes, Type 1.5 Diabetes, Type LADALeave a comment

Every three months I see my doctor concerning my diabetes. During my visits we talk about any questions or concerns I may have, we try to analyze the data downloaded from my pump, we determine new strategies to be incorporated in my management techniques, and we end up chatting about my job at the pool. The other morning, I told her I quit my job and her face lit up with pleasure. Most of our meeting was spent talking about the issue of discrimination and how it tends to infiltrate our daily experiences without challenge. Over the past year, my doctor and I have had many conversations regarding my attempts to inform Fryer and the Park District about my emotional and behavioral disability, while still having to mitigate the effects of simply being female and labeled as a ‘bitch.’

But first I want to share my good news — my A1c was 7.6, which is amazing!

Back in May, my A1c was 7.6, but that was after a hard year of dragging it down from a 9.2, and my intention was to bring it down even lower. By August I had succeeded in dropping to a 7.2, and I was anticipating a 6.8 today because of the incredibly stable glucose levels I have sustained for the past three months. My first reaction to seeing the 7.6 was to groan and feel slightly dejected, but I have learned in the past ten years to not take a number seriously. After all, it is only a number. A basic lesson I have cultivated while living my diabetic experience is that numbers are capricious, with the only constant being that the good numbers will come, and then go with no explanation.

After analyzing the data retrieved from my pump, listing all the blood sugar levels that have been entered for the past month, my doctor was able to determine that my debilitating early morning and afternoon lows seem to have finally disappeared. The rest of my numbers were in a steady range between 100-200. My A1c had increased because I was actually healthier than I had been when my A1c was lower three months ago! Tricky, tricky Diabetes!

When I explained what had happened at the pool leading to my decision to walk out, and how my diabetes had been a core factor in the incident, my doctor and I discussed the ways in which women are expected to behave in public. We talked about how easy it is for men to be disagreeable, unpleasant, or even straight up rude, and not be held accountable. Yet, as women, we are immediately labeled as ‘bitchy,’ ‘up-tight,’ or ‘unreasonable’ simply for behaving in a manner analogous to men. The ability, and willingness, to proscribe different values upon the exact same behavioral traits being expressed depending upon the sexual organs of a person’s physical body is GENDER DISCRIMINATION.

I suffered gender discrimination at the pool. Before this last summer started, I wrote a letter to Fryer explaining one of my ‘reasonable requests’ under the Americans with Disabilities Act was to begin my shifts at the exact same time every morning. This one action has been huge in helping me to manage my glucose levels and is directly relevant to my lower A1c. I informed Fryer of the letter in advance, and that I would be including a letter from my doctor as confirmation of my disability. I asked him if there was any specific information he would appreciate being included in my doctor’s letter, and his answer was to tell me that he simply didn’t want to receive a letter that gave me “carte blanche to act like a bitch.” HIS COMMENT WAS GENDER DISCRIMINATION.

Back when I first began to understand how many of the ‘problems’ Fryer was blaming me for, in terms of my ‘attitude,’ were actually caused by fluctuations in my blood sugar that were detrimentally affecting my personality, I attempted to educate Fryer and Dale about this new insight into my disease, and how it affected me. I tried to make an analogy to Fryer’s well-known bad-tempered moods, which have culminated in full-blown tantrums where Fryer has had to be avoided at work because of the backlash. When I pointed out Fryer’s own personally disruptive and troublesome moods (that are not the result of a dysfunctional endocrine system) his immediate response was to label his moods as being a result of times when he is “focused.” THIS DISTINCTION IN LABELS IS GENDER DISCRIMINATION.

It is unfair, and illegal, for the pool to hold me accountable for displaying behavioral traits that are exhibited by other members of the workforce (especially by my male boss), but to only hold me accountable, and to consistently reprimand me for not changing my ‘attitude’ — especially considering that my unacceptable behavioral traits are a direct result of the stress and anxiety I have been experiencing at work because of being sexually harassed, and retaliated against, during the past six years. My ‘attitude’ has been a direct consequence of my disability created by diabetes and the hostile work environment Fryer helped to create by marginalizing me. The Park District’s continued unwillingness to change their ‘attitude’ towards me, and for continuing to blame me for being diabetic is DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION mixed with GENDER DISCRIMINATION.

This is why I quit the pool. I had enough. I was no longer willing to participate in my own suffering by allowing them the opportunity to continue discriminating against me because I am a diabetic female.

The Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines state that it is “illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.” During my meeting with Fryer and Dale at the end of the summer in 2017, I was given an ultimatum to either quit my job (and receive a good reference from Fryer) or remain employed at the pool under the condition that one more complaint would result in immediate termination of my employment. I chose to remain because I was not prepared to be unemployed, but I wanted to make sure that my bosses were aware of the difficult relations I was having with one of the water exercise instructors at the time, so if she were to make a complaint, at least it wouldn’t be coming out of the dark. When I told Fryer about my difficulty getting along with Jakki, Fryer simply replied, “Well, if she has a problem then she can pull up her big girl pants and deal with it.” That statement, in those circumstances, was extremely offensive to me as a woman. Especially considering the fact that the complaint made against me, resulting in the ultimatum, had come from a man at work who wasn’t even in the same department as me. I wanted to demand why John in Maintenance was not told to “pull up [his big boy] pants and deal with it.” Instead, I was still under the belief that I was required to respect the authority my bosses held over me, so I let the offensive comment go without challenge.

Research shows that service-based industries, in which employees rely on customer approval, can breed an environment of harassment, but 73% of sexually harassed women never report incidences because:

“If you do come forward, you’ll be labeled a ‘troublemaker’ or a ‘bitch.’ More importantly, you won’t be believed.”

—Gretchen Carlson, former Fox News Channel host filing a sexual harassment suit against Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes in 2016

Men most often have the power to determine if an organization will prevent and treat sexual harassment—or allow it to spread. I believe the same statement is true concerning gender discrimination. After all, sexual harassment is nothing more than the recognizable face of discrimination against a woman for being a woman in a man’s world. Women who deviate from the gender norms attributed to them by exhibiting traditionally masculine personality traits, or who simply are employed in supervisory roles, are especially likely to experience harassment in their work environment. This was true in my case, at least.

When men are competent they are perceived as being forceful. Women who display the same traits of competence are conversely seen as being aggressive. I was a victim of this particular brand of discrimination based upon my gender. My prominent personality traits, which include my tendency to be assertive and refuse the arbitrary roles expected of me by society in general, allowed my coworkers and bosses to label me as being ‘bitchy.’ I was given less latitude in being able to ‘get away with’ similar types of rude behavior that Fryer, and other men I worked with, were commonly known for exhibiting.

This is where the intersection of racial discrimination joins in making a rather special case out of my experiences. Despite the Civil Rights’ Movement, and educational gains within the black community, many black women still struggle to overcome stereotypes that paint them as ‘aggressive’ or ‘difficult to work with.’ Many black women who are immersed within a mostly white, male-dominated setting (such as my employment status at the Park District) will find themselves assigned with the stereotype of being the ‘angry black woman’ simply because of our intelligence, our out-spoken-ness, and the confidence we have in our skills and capacities.

My experiences, and struggles, at the pool have taught me to recognize how my diabetes affects me. I am now capable of explaining these traits to my next employer. I wish my previous employer had felt enough respect for me to listen more and learn with me over the years. I wish I didn’t have to walk out on my friends. I wish the world was a fair place to live in. I wish women didn’t have to struggle with being called a ‘bitch.’

But wishes are like farts. At worst, they stink and then dissipate. At best, they simply go unnoticed.

Thoughtful Reflections

On November 18, 2018 By ZephyrIn diabetes, Diabetic Lifestyle, disability discrimination, invisible disability, Pool, sexual harassment, Type 1 Diabetes, Type LADA, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I had an entirely different post written and edited ready to be published. I was going to make some final touches this morning when I went out for coffee, but I forgot my flash drive. When I finally got around to grabbing a beer with my dinner and publish, I forgot my flash drive. Again.

So. This is what I started writing this morning and what I am finishing right now with the last of my beer (a bitter at Falling Sky, in case you’re interested).

Spending my time writing instead of working has been cathartic. I know my writing pretty much sucks at this point. I also know it is only my mother, and two or so random friends (with a couple of strangers added to the mix), who are the only people reading this crap. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to say Thank You! Even if this is the only post you have ever begun to read, and you have absolutely no intention of reading to the end, I still would like to Thank You!

I need this time to process and untangle the knot that has been residing in my heart for the past six years. Many of the friends I left behind at the pool never had the opportunity to know me without the influence of the knot of dread that has been harboring in my breast since I lost my friendship with Red. I wish I could have had more time to experience being the person I am, without the stress from harassment and the high blood sugars it causes, while working at the pool, but I know it would be of no use. The people working there believe they know who I am. They believe that the crabby, grumpy and unpredictable Sam is the real Sam I am. How can they possibly understand how much of my personality is hijacked when I am stressed, or hyperglycemic, or tired from managing my diabetes all night instead of sleeping, when I have only begun to understand how diabetes affects me for myself?

The stress derived from my encounter with sexual harassment resulted in my strenuous struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I was never officially diagnosed because I never told anyone about what happened. I suffered in silence for years. I feel free now knowing I will no longer suffer, nor be silent, but that knowledge does nothing to erase the emotional knot I have been living with since I refused to have sex with Red. This knot has become an entity within myself. It can, at times, be a puppet master pulling at my emotional strings and causing me to behave in obstinate and cantankerous ways that are misperceived by those who don’t know me as being ‘bitchy.’ But, I am not a bitch.

I repeat, I am not a bitch. I am a strong-headed, loud mouthed, sarcastic, and fundamentally independent woman. I speak in a manner that is blunt and direct with no flowering or sugaring of words (after all, I am diabetic and don’t need any more unnecessary sugar in my life). My manner can be abrasive, offensive, and judgmental, but I never speak with the intention of causing harm. I may not be very nice most of the time, but I am always kind.

The problem is that my kindness is easily disguised, or hidden, by the puppet master crawling around in the dank safety of my heart’s infernal knot. This damn knot has been an insufferable curse I have never been able to truly escape, but, over the years, I have learned how to begin releasing the negativity infecting my heart’s true purpose born from the traumatic experience of harassment. I no longer blame Red. There is no need. I accepted long ago that blaming anyone is useless and more harmful to myself then to them. I was lucky enough to not leave the pool before I had the experience of knowing that I had healed from my trauma caused by Red’s actions.

On the same morning when I had my encounter with Amanda (which became the crucible of my decision to quit) I finally had an encounter with Red that was as calm, peaceful, and uneventful as the days before his solicitations for sex. Being able to speak with Red, to have him speak back respectfully, and feeling safe enough to hand him a pen to write with, proved to me beyond a doubt that whatever problems Amanda believed she had with me were of her own making, and existed within her own mind. What I had ‘done’ to upset her so much was more a consequence of her own emotional immaturity and past behavior. The maturity that evolved from my personal suffering over the years had already made its mark. My diabetes, however, that is an entirely different story, and the foundation upon which the Park District has been capable of marginalizing both me and the issues I brought to their attention.

PauseBreatheReflect

On November 15, 2018 By ZephyrIn diabetes, Education, Pool1 Comment

Day 7

I feel no doubt. I am not sad. The guilt is minimal and underwhelming. The anger no longer bubbles to the surface with ease. I regret not seeing my friends, and the awkward position my actions may have put them in.

But, I do not regret walking out of my job one week ago. It was the right choice. It was healthy, self-serving, liberating, and the most ethical choice I could make at the time. I conducted myself with dignity and integrity. Even though I knew my actions would cause harm I was never, at any moment, intent on hurting anyone. I don’t know if that makes a difference for anyone else, but I feel comfortable with my belief that it makes all the difference for me.

This blog has become my full-time job in the past seven days. I wake up in the morning, putz around the house or watch a movie, and then I go out into the world to sit among the public and write the post to be published for that day. I’m actually quite sick of this routine already. My posts this week have become erratic and rather pedantic for my taste. Each post has been a reaction to my action of walking away from the pool. I either sit at Townshend’s, Falling Sky, or The Wandering Goat typing my post for the day and publishing it immediately. This technique was helpful at first. It allowed me to spend the daylight hours of my first week being unemployed feeling as if I were accomplishing something significant. But, let’s be honest, that’s bullsh*t.

Being able to purge my thoughts and feelings into a post written and edited thirty seconds before publication was constructive because it helped to organize my thoughts into a narrative. I now have an idea of how my story should be told. I realized with my post last night that I want to put more thought and time into telling my story. I want to have more reflection upon all the interconnected elements of my experience as I write about them. I want to decrease the amount of reactive emotion being incorporated in my writing, and instead learn to focus my storytelling on the issues of disability discrimination, gender, race, sexual harassment, hostile work environments, obsolete administrative structures, effective communication, retaliation, rampant rumormongering, and the harmful damage caused by the process of labeling others as ‘different.’ These are the issues that I struggled to learn how to recognize within my experiences at the pool, but they are not the only issues I am concerned with in our society.

A decade of living with diabetes, instead of building a career in education, has given me the unprecedented ability to step back from everything I know about our society, and truly begin to understand what it is I want to educate our young about how to survive within our society. Survival for the human species, and planet Earth, will depend upon a shift in global attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. If we continue to live the way we are currently, then we will kill all life as we know to exist. I want to teach kids how to change their world by modeling for them how I change my world everyday. They will need to deeply understand the concepts of community resilience, local government, sustainability, reduction of consumption, a renewable energy-based economy, collaberation and cooperation, as well as conflict resolution skills, which are all woefully neglected within the pedagogy and currriculum of our nation’s public education system. I want to use public education as a vehicle for helping students to create a global community built upon the values of self-sacrifice, stewardship, and civic duty.

These ideas are too big for me to write about while drinking a pint, or three, of beer at the deli. So, this is my last post to be written in public and published immediately. I had an image in my mind of writing everyday and telling my story in pieces, but the strain of keeping my thoughts flowing in a linear stream to make each post directly connect to the next is not working for me. Instead, my story is simply going to come out in random chunks. Each day will still be met with a published post, but each post will no longer be an attempt to tell my narrative in a linear fashion. I will be jumping from chapter to chapter of my life, telling the stories I have accumulated over the years of experience I have lived through.

My plan (for now) is to label each relevant story under the category of either Education, Diabetes, or Pool. That way, those interested in reading my stories can choose which narrative to follow. I think this may work. I have high hopes. *shrug*

Otherwise, my daily posts are going to be random stories from over the years that may actually have nothing to do with my disease, my time at the pool, or my convictions about public education (I have climbing stories up the wazoo!). The only thing connecting all the various narratives will be the simple fact they all happened to me at some point in my life. That is, after all, what this blog is ultimately about: me.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blatherings. I appreciate the support and love your action of reading provides me!

day 5: MY diabetes

On November 15, 2018November 15, 2018 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.

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!

Day 3: The Darkside

On November 12, 2018 By ZephyrIn Diabetic Lifestyle, disability discrimination, gender discrimination, Liberation, racism, sexism, and other isms, sexual harassment2 Comments

Everything has a darkside. Everything. Not just the Park District, the Force, or the moon.

I have a darkside. It has gotten me into trouble many, many times. It is the Yang to my Yin. The flip to my flop. It is an undercooked hotdog served with a slice of Wonder bread. It is the side of existence that we avoid and ignore with what little passion we have left in our hearts after spending our days working at jobs that simply don’t pay us enough to breath.

I’ve only begun to tell the darkside of my story. It amazes me to think this is only the third post I have written in my new life as a writer. I’m not exactly sure what this new life will look like, but I am certain it will be filled with the love, joy and support that I have been receiving from my friends and family. My parents are helping to pay for my rent and holiday travel, my brother is helping to pay my electricity bill, and I have been saving and preparing for this moment since August of 2017 when Fryer and Dale tried to scare me into quitting by threatening me with a bad reference if I were to stay and receive one more complaint. I was ambushed for that meeting. It was not the first ambush I have survived while working there, but when they tried to ambush me again last Tuesday — I quit.

And walked away with peace and joy in my heart.

I had hoped I would be able to survive working and receiving a reliable paycheck until I could respectfully put in my two-weeks notice, but that option was ripped away from me and I was forced to walk out on the spot. There was no drama. I did everything in my power to avoid making a scene and causing a fuss… other than the fuss caused by the fact that my boss had no one but himself to cover my shift.

The inherent irony of the moment when I quit is a thing of pure beauty. To put it succinctly, Fryer has been forced to work a shift as a lifeguard, for the past month or so, ever since the woman working the day shift with me suddenly quit with barely a two week notice. Fryer conducted a quick ‘mini’ lifeguard class in order to hire two senior men who are regular patrons at the pool to cover his shift, yet one of the men quit before he was hired and Fryer still had to guard, albeit a shorter shift. Two days after the new guy was finally ready to work by himself was the day I quit. My cherry on top: Fryer spends everyday sitting in the hot tubs or sauna while being scheduled as the Building Supervisor. It is an act that not a single one of the other Building Supervisors are allowed to imitate. Fryer commonly refers to these moments during his workday as his daily “hot tub inspection.” I caught him upstairs as he was in his swimsuit, with his towel over his arm, and headed out to the hot tub to start ‘working’ his shift for the day.

“As repayment for all the years I spent being unfairly mistreated, I am doing this one small unfair act at the most inconvienent moment for you. I quit.”

I handed him my key and rode my bike home for the last time. I could not have planned the timing better if I tried. Life planned it for me.

I had made the decision to quit the night before. The full impact of what Fryer said to me during the middle of my shift on Tuesday did not register at first, but by the time I was home and capable of uninterrupted reflection, I realized I would not ALLOW the Park District one more opportunity to marginalize me. To victimize me by blaming me with unfounded statements and rumors that were NEVER investigated.

It was providential that, a week prior to my decision to quit, a young high school student just beginning her first job working at the pool decided to challenge my authority as her Building Supervisor on an early morning Saturday shift. I had a coworker proofread my texts to her to make certain I was using a proper and respectful ‘voice’ of authority before sending them. When the young lady complained to Fryer about my ‘voice’ in the texts, she offered to let him read them. Fryer declined. On the Saturday in question, I had informed Fryer what was occuring (since he was at the pool doing the ‘mini’ lifeguard lesson), I explained what I had said in my texts, and told him about her snarky reply challenging my authority to chastise her for lack of following procedure (which, it turns out, was the exact same mistake she had made a few days earlier during one of Fryer’s shifts). I offered that Saturday morning to let Fryer read my texts and her reply, but he refused. On Monday, after the young woman complained to Fryer, he had to rotate with me and the first words out of his mouth were, “well, it’s the same old complaint about how you say things.” When I offered to let him read the texts for the second time, he again refused, but said, “keep them though. Just in case it gets worse.”

FAILURE TO INVESTIGATE is the reason I quit my job. Well, that and the fact that I have spent the past six years being labeled a “bitch” because I have had difficulty learning how to control my glucose levels, because I have a hard time recognizing the emotional and behavioral side-effects of my diabetes, because I refused to have sex with Red, because I am assertive and direct, because I am a strong black woman, because I tend to speak my mind, because I intimidate some people with my confidence, and because I have a habit of trying to fix problems on my own without complaining to others.

Like I said, I have a darkside. And it has gotten me in trouble many, many times. This time, however, I used my darkside to discover the ‘voice’ of Liberation hidden deep inside me and buried under years of doubt, fear, anxiety, confusion, trepidation, torment, and anguish. The erosion of my self-esteem during my years of oppression at the pool was an aspect of my employed existence that I was no longer willing to accept. The strength of my personality preserved me through the years of suffering. My darkside has always shown itself as a side of my personality that can be intimidating, authoritative, judgemental, and intolerant.

But, there is always a silver lining to every darkside. The silver lining of my current situation is the support and love I have received from the people who care about me, and the opportunities that have been continuously appearing before me that I would not have been able to capitalize on if I was still employed. The day after I quit I was offered a spot on two different women’s soccer teams, I have been offered professional help with my resume, I have been given links to new job possibilities, and I have uncovered a fathomless depth of energy and enjoyment for my new life, which would never have been possible without my unemployment.

As much as I am enjoying the freedom to live my new Life, I have to face the fact that I will simultaneously find myself in a position of losing as much as I gain. This morning I had to accept losing a friendship because of my actions at the pool. I have not contacted anyone still employed at the pool. I have absolutely no intention of ever going near that place again. The people I enjoyed working with who are still working there will have to be willing to reach out to me. I will not feed my energy into the destructive atmosphere of the pool ever again. Like I said yesterday, the pool is a cult. Supporting my assertion is the fact that I am not the only ex-employee of the cult hiding in town, and unwilling to have contact with anyone at the Park District.

Thursday morning I texted my friend still working at the pool:

I quit the pool yesterday. I waited until Jeff showed up and then handed him my key as he was in his swimsuit headed out to the hot tubs. I said, “As repayment for all the years I spent being unfairly mistreated, I am doing this one small unfair act at the most inconvenient moment for you. I quit.”

I feel good today 🙂

Wanna grab a beer and hear the whole story?

I expected her to be thrilled for me because she has been talking for the past month about how much she wants to quit working at the pool, how unfair the place is, how many problems she has to face during her shifts, and how tired she is of the fact that the pool never changes. I have shared my stories about sexual harassment and discrimination over the years with her. I thought at the very least she would reply with a simple, “wow! I hope everything works out ok.”

Instead, her response was:

I am under the weather

Maybe another time

At the time, I thought it odd that she would use illness as her excuse, only because a few days previously she had called in sick to work at the pool because she was, in her words, “sick of working there” and instead had a beer with me and talked about how much she wanted to quit.

I was hurt, but I did what I always do — I accepted her as the person she is and held my silence in peace. The exact type of response that has allowed me to be in a position of being systemically harassed and discriminated against. After three days of silence from my ‘friend’ I decided to speak up for myself and my hurt feelings. Last night I sent her another text:

I’m confused as to why you haven’t reached out. I tell you I quit the pool and you have nothing to say?? It feels as if you don’t care and, to be honest, that kinda hurts. Are you ok?!? Is the fact that I quit coming between our friendship? I hope not, but I will understand if it has become a problem for you.

This morning I woke up to her reply:

I am not sure how to respond to this. I have been ill for a few days-but… Clearly I am unable to meet your needs as a friend and I have disappointed you. Also, Amanda is coaching staff and this is too close to home for me, don’t you think? But the only thing I can do is respectfully back away because I really don’t know how to support you. I can’t handle any more negativity in my life at the moment and I will leave it at that.

I realized immediately that this person was my last affiliation to the cult and I needed to sever ALL attachment with the pool. In a single text, my ‘friend’ not only gave her support to the power structure of the pool cult by listening to whatever rumors are rampantly spreading among the void left behind by my absence, but she effectively proved that my well-being and happiness were not an issue of importance to her.

It was not difficult for me to find my ‘voice’ of Liberation and to respond to her as kindly and respectfully as possible:

Ok. My quitting had NOTHING to do with Amanda and I have never felt better in my life. I regret the fact that you would rather believe in pool gossip, but I respect your choice. There is no negativity involved for me, but it does sound like you have enough to deal with on your own. As for supporting me as my friend…all I wanted from you was to feel like you cared about me. We could have easily talked about anything else over a beer. I wish you the best of luck 🙂

And now I am truly finished with the pool. I have escaped the cult and I am not damaged by the repercussions of the ostracism inherent within a cult’s culture. I have no fear of not being able to return. I am exactly where I want to be. Darkside included.

Liberation is a CHOICE you must Act upon

On November 10, 2018November 11, 2018 By ZephyrIn Diabetic Lifestyle, disability discrimination, gender discrimination, Liberation, racism, sexism, and other isms, sexual harassment, Type 1 Diabetes, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I quit my job Wednesday morning.

I started my shift at 8:30 and waited until my boss showed up to start his shift. He arrived at 9:40 and disappeared upstairs in his office. My rotation for lifeguarding the pool ended at 10:00 (when his Building Supervisor shift began) and I went to the bathroom to pee before heading upstairs to confront my boss and give him my key to the building.

My first words to him were: “I have suffered years of harassment and discrimination ever since you allowed Red to manipulate you into retaliating against me for not having sex with him.”

The last words I said to him before I walked away were: “I will not allow you the opportunity to marginalize me again.”

It was the most rewarding and liberating act I have ever performed since the moment of my birth!

My story is long and it deeply involves the hidden and unspoken forces of sexism, racism, and our seemingly collective inability to take responsibility for our personal perceptions of ‘others’ who happen to be ‘different’.

The trouble began over six years ago when an older male coworker of mine was going through a nasty second divorce. Some of us suspected he was coming to work at least slightly intoxicated because of the smell of alcohol and his glassy, bloodshot eyes. One day, after his shift ended and he was dressed in his regular clothes, he cornered me in the back office while I was still on shift and in my lifeguard uniform. There are two chairs in the small back office and he placed himself so I was unable to get up from my chair and walk away without having to physically push past him. I felt extremely uncomfortable the moment he sat down, but I didn’t say anything because I had become used to the feeling of being uncomfortable within his presence.

I remember feeling offended when I realized I was unable to simply get up and walk away from him if I wanted to. He hadn’t said or done anything to scare me, I simply did not appreciate feeling ‘forced’ to participate in his conversation. He started by telling me how much he appreciated my friendship and how attracted he was to me. At this point, the only thought in my head was “Shit. He’s finally crossed over into ‘creepy old man’ territory.”

***This is a territory most younger women must learn to navigate without a map or directions. I once had a senior male patron at the pool say to me, “You are looking good today, Sam! I can say that because I’m old (wink, wink)!” I stood in my guard uniform, while being paid to spend my time observing our patrons and respond to any medical emergency, and I calmly responded, “Just because you think you can say something, doesn’t mean you should.” These are the types of comments some people would complain about and I would end up being in trouble with my boss.***

Red asked me if I wanted to be “more than friends” with him. My immediate reaction was to feel disgust and disdain for his approach. At the time he was still married and we had enjoyed a three year friendship at work where he would share stories about his kids who are closer to my age than he is. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings anymore than I already knew they were hurting from his current life situation. I tried to be ‘lady-like’ and ‘polite’ and ‘respectful’ and ‘nice’ — just like I had been taught to do since being a little girl while learning how to ‘behave properly’ with my elders.

I thanked Red for his compliment and told him, “No. I do not want to be ‘more than friends.'” I smiled when I said it because that was the ‘right’ thing to do. I did not challenge him on his approach, or his assumption that I would simply be willing to have sex with him (nor his obvious lack of respect for me by not bothering to first ask me out on a ‘date‘). This was not the first time I have had to turn away a man who wanted to have sex with me. This was, however, the only time that the man I turned away did not understand the word “NO“.

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I have free time now. LOTS of free time. I’m looking forward to spending my free time writing my story, telling my story, sharing my story, and using my story to erradicate the dark Injustice of discrimination with the light of Awareness. The experiences I survived at my old job have given me a personal insight into the deep and abiding grip blind ignorance can have on the best of people. As a direct consequence of the sexual harassment I suffered from my co-worker, Red Liegel, and his subsequent behavior and actions (including two episodes of verbal assault at work), I have also suffered years of sustained and systemic gender and disability (for insulin-dependent diabetes) discrimination from the administration controlling my old workplace.

I even have possession of a copy of an opinion, written by a co-worker currently still employed at my last place of employment, expressing her belief that State-sanctioned slavery, supported by Congress and the 13th Amendment, is a reasonable and possible solution for the problem of illegal immigration within our nation. I found this opinion one day at work while looking for a memo, with the combination to unlock the money for the cashier, that had been taken out of my box. It was in her box, in the employee breakroom, where it could have just as easily been found by one of the high school swim team kids who were coming in to begin their practice. I shared the opinion with the head swim coach, but, despite his horror and disgust, he did nothing about it.

I am writing my story so I can send it out into the world. I want to share it with anyone who can use it to help make the world a better place to live. I will be sharing my story with newspapers, magazines, neighborhood groups, non-profit organizations, my City Council, the local school board, as well as sharing my reprimand to the Board of Directors of my old employer. I am looking forward to spending my free time making a difference in the world I live in.

I make my first vow, right now and right here, to write every day.

Everyday I will post a new part of my story. I will use this commitment as a way to improve my writing, and as a way to remember all of the smaller injustices I suffered that, at the time, were subsumed beneath the overall oppression of my situation. I will share my memories with everyone who is willing to listen.

Please ask me questions. Please feel welcome to participate with me in dialogue. I look forward to engaging with others so we may share ALL our stories and provide the support we ALL deserve!

It is only in silence when we allow ourselves to be harmed.

***The names of the guilty will not be changed. I will not protect them. I will say what happened to me from my perspective. I will share my story.***

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.

How Low Can YOU Go?

On July 4, 2018July 4, 2018 By ZephyrIn CGM, Diabetic Lifestyle, hypoglycemic event, Type 1 Diabetes, Type LADA1 Comment

Low blood sugars can be scary. They certainly scare the hell out of me when I’m alone. A few weeks ago, I was walking to the store when I realized I was no longer walking in a straight line. My blood sugars had begun to drop so suddenly that my cgm was unable to keep up and give me a warning. By the time I made it to the street the store was on I could feel my thigh muscles begin to twitch–a sign that a seizure is close at hand. I had one applesauce packet with me in my purse and I swayed on the street corner sucking it down, praying I would make it through the parking lot without collapsing. There weren’t many cars out, but I stood on that corner for a few minutes staring at the one way street I wanted to cross, the one way cross-street with oncoming traffic, and the street lights trying to convince myself that it was safe to step out into the street and not get hit by a car. I was scared that I would be confused and step in front of a moving car by mistake. I had to chuckle, though, at the image of me standing on the corner, swaying like a drunk, and all the people in their cars hoping I wasn’t too drunk to step out in front of them suddenly.

I finally made it into the store and went straight to the bakery section. I knew where I was at the time, but I was unable to recognize my surroundings. Thankfully, I shop at that store often and I was able to subconsciously find my way to accessible carbohydrates. There was one chocolate donut in the bakery case and I reached in and put it in my mouth without pausing. I was into my second bite when I looked up and saw a young woman behind the counter staring at me with a look on her face. She asked if I needed help and I simply shook my head as I went for a third chunk of chocolate donut to stuff in my mouth. I thought about twisting my arm so she could see the med alert tattoo I have on the inside of my right wrist, but, even in the midst of confusion from a bad low, I knew it was useless to try and explain WHY I needed to eat that donut as if my life depended on it.

It has been years since I’ve had a low bad enough to incapacitate me, or cause me to be unable to administer a correction without assistance. Most of the time, I hate sharing these stories because I hate how they make the non-pancreatically challenged people around me react. Either I am bombarded with suggestions on what to do to take care of myself, or with suggestions on how to prevent it from happening again–all of which are useless because they come from people who have never had to count a single carb in their entire life. Friends, family, strangers on the street…it doesn’t matter who it is, I hate being told what I should be doing by people who are not diabetic.

So I joined some online diabetic communities thinking I would be able to connect with people who could easily understand what I am experiencing. Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy, even in the virtual world.

I joined the Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults community on Facebook thinking I had finally found the population of diabetics who would understand me and my particular circumstances; not adults who had grown up fighting diabetes, and not parents of children who are fighting diabetes, but other adults who had to wake up one morning and start living their adult life as a diabetic. I thought the fact that people seemed to post questions and comments meant that I had found a way to connect with people who shared a compatible need for connection and communication. Instead, I found a community of people who seemed to whine as much as type 2’s: When will I have to start taking insulin? How do I prolong my honeymoon? What should I eat to not have to take insulin?

None of these questions concern me or my experience with diabetes. I was completely dependent upon insulin from the first moment I learned I was diabetic. My pancreas and I never had a honeymoon. I never had the option of eating anything that wouldn’t raise my blood sugars. Hundreds of diabetics from across the planet are able to connect with each other and share the experience of trying to avoid taking insulin with their food. I wish I could be one of them, but I never will be.

24-hour graph with peaks and valleys, but all within a decent range

I posted one question to the community in search of other brittle diabetics like myself with a picture of my 24-hour graph showing extreme peaks and valleys in my glucose levels. I had a few people suggest I eat less carbs (without asking, of course, what my normal routine of low-carb cooking was) or suggest that I not eat so many carbs for a correction (not knowing that a 21g granola bar has the ability to send me from a 52 to 257 in less than thirty minutes). Again, I was simply receiving advice from people who are clueless, only this time they also have a malfunctioning pancreas–only their pancreas still works well enough to allow them the hope of thinking they may not need to become dependent upon insulin before the cure is found.

I didn’t get very many responses, and none of them truly helped to make me feel connected, but I did have one very interesting exchange. One woman had posted a picture of her 24-hour graph stating she “wasn’t very happy” with it: a long steady line that had a small bump going up to 175 and coming back down. My peaks had easily reached upwards of 350 and my valleys were down in the 50’s, so when I read her comment I wanted to smack her through the internet and hopefully knock some sense into her. Instead, I tried to be courteous by replying, “Damn! That looks good to me. I’m jealous!” Another women commented a few hours later berating the first woman for being so insensitive as to complain about her graph. I thought, “Finally! A chance to start a conversation!” but, before I could respond, the entire conversation thread was deleted. Great. So, not only am I still not connecting with people who are able to share similar experiences, but now some invisible and disconnected individual is censoring my post and disallowing me the opportunity to engage in a meaningful conversation that, at the very least, has the potential of increasing other people’s awareness and perceptions about diabetes.

I have finally come to accept that there is most likely not another diabetic in the world who can easily comprehend or share in the particularities of my personal brand of diabetes. As much as the memes try to remind me that I am not alone, I nevertheless feel very lonely in a world where my experiences are incomprehensible to everyone else. For example, last night I went out for dinner and drinks with a good friend and I slightly overestimated my carb count for the calamari.

By nine o’clock my cgm started vibrating and beeping while we sat next to the fire in my yard. I was at 42 and felt perfectly fine. I started counting backwards from 100 by three’s and didn’t miss a beat. I told my friend I should maybe count back by four’s since I’m used to testing my coherency with three’s–I still did not have a problem doing the math. I started ranting about how frustrating it is to be so damn low and not feel a single symptom to give me a warning. I went inside and pulled out my stash of emergency carbohydrates: applesauce and dried fruit. I wasn’t the slightest bit hungry since I had eaten a full meal earlier at the restaurant but I drained the applesauce packet while ranting about the need to eat when I’m not hungry, and the fact that I have to waste so much garbage by using single serving pouches to accurately control my carbohydrate intake. This is not how I want to live my life, but what choice do I have if I want to stay alive??

Two hours after the first glucose test, 17g of applesauce, and no basal (I usually keep my temp basal for an hour at a time)

My blood sugar slowly rose up from the applesauce and I never suffered any confusion, loss of balance, or twitching muscles. My friend was scared because my numbers were so damn low, and I could tell I was acting a little erratically, but, overall, it was a hypoglycemic event that wasn’t much of an event at all. Definitely not the kind of hypoglycemic event that would have occurred for other diabetics who were to drop so low. Or, maybe, there are others out there like me; people who suffer alone, and in silence, thinking they are the only diabetic whose diabetes does not operate the way every medical professional who treats diabetes says it should. Maybe, just maybe, I’m not alone either. Maybe I’m not the only brittle diabetic who can accurately count backwards from 100 by three’s or four’s while suffering a severe hypoglycemic event.

The LADA Diva

Tag: diabetes