Halloween is truly evil

It's Halloween weekend! As excited as I am to celebrate - I've concluded that there is no other holiday or event that sets a diabetic up to fail so miserably. At least, a diabetic college freshman like me. Offerings of beer and candy are rampant! And, even more cruel, tomorrow is the beginning of National Diabetes Month.

So after we drink and eat ourselves into a coma tonight - and our blood sugar can't decide whether to go up from the candy or down from the alcohol - we get to wake up to celebrate healthy diabetes awareness! Woo-hoo.

Oh well, I'm still looking forward to this weekend! I'll try to be good. Happy Halloween!

Inspired...

In Chemistry class a few weeks ago, I met a Business major turned pre-Nursing student - a switch in career path that you don't see very often, if ever. When I asked why he had completely flipped his choice of major, he told me his story:

Less than a year ago, his fiance was hit by a drunk drag racer - leaving her in a coma and on life support for several months. Since the accident, he (above) has taken care of her in every way - helping her to overcome severe brain trauma and to rebuild her damaged body. He took off a quarter from school to be with her at all times - and when he came back, he had a completely new plan. "I learned so much taking care of her...I decided to become a nurse instead," he told me.

In the Facebook group dedicated to his fiance, he writes, "I'm beginning nursing school at OSU because of the care and compassion of the nursing staff at Mt Carmel Neuro ICU. I hope to build my career and give the same care and compassion to those who need it."

For a long time, my mind has been made up that nursing is what I want to do. The more I learn about and interact with people in the health field, the less I can picture myself doing anything else in the future. I'm inspired by people like my friend and his fiance, by the cancer patients I smile at every Friday morning in the medical center, by the many nurses who work on the Endocrinology floor at Children's Hospital in Cincinnati.

I'm excited to see everything that lies ahead of me in nursing.

I'm the happiest person on Earth

December 10: Complete final exam at 3:18 PM, immediately get in the car with Sarah to drive to Cincinnati, pick up Dad, drive straight to Abby's in Atlanta

December 11: Drive from Atlanta to Fort Benning for Adam's graduation from Basic Training!!!!!!!!

December 12-14: Hang out in Atlanta to celebrate Abby's 30th birthday!

December 17: Adam is home for two weeks!!!!

Love letters are not dead

Writing letters has it's virtues - it allows you to be far more eloquent and heartfelt (which is nice in an age where the term "love letter" is almost dead). Plus, I'm much better at articulating my feelings through writing than I am through speaking - in a letter, I don't feel as vulnerable to say outright, "I'm so in love with you."

However, when you're accustomed to a fast-paced world in which Facebook satisfies your every whim to communicate instantly with friends far and wide, snail mail is incredibly frustrating.

Which is why it felt so good to speak to Adam on the phone today! Phone calls from him are quite sporadic but I can usually count on receiving one once a week. They're very short - about a five minute maximum - but today we got the chance to speak for over 13 minutes. Unfortunately, the time always seems to slips right through my fingers. But I should be receiving another letter in my mailbox tomorrow!

Has a song ever spoken to you?

You're listening when, all of a sudden, you realize holy shit...this artist has transformed my exact thoughts at this moment into beautiful music.
_________________________________________

A blue, black shade of love
Sent from above
My hands are tied to worlds unknown,
And this I know
Your breath's like wine,
And just like clouds, my skin crawls
It's so divine, the sky it glows with fields of light

Did you know that I love you?
Come and lay with me
I love you
And all this day, I will love you
You make me feel alive,
and I'll love you
Until the end of time

My hands shake clasped with fear as you come near
To say goodnight, just like a dove
A peaceful sign
To help us by as you come in
Let this begin
Stars fall like dust, our lips will touch
We speak too much

Harvest Moon

On the drive back from Cincinnati tonight, I saw an enormous harvest moon for the first time. It was beautiful - and kinda freaky.

Chemo

I'm amazed at the warmth in the smile of the man who says to me, "Hello I'm here for chemo."

From my sister Abby

Even some of my closest friends have been totally surprised to discover that I have two more older siblings. The reason being that my half-brother and half-sister are more than a decade older than me - Seth is 28, Abby is almost 30 - and they lived with us only for brief periods of time when I was very young.

Moreover, Abby and Seth had radically (quite literally) different adolescences that my sister Sarah and I could never relate to. Both of them suffered an array of behavioral and mental problems after witnessing a messy divorce between my father and their mother. So, as a result of much of this, we never became very close.

It was never "my sister Abby," it was always "my half-sister Abby."

As I've gotten older, however, that has begun to change. I've been able to connect much more with Abby and Seth in recent years. After I got my tattoo, Abby called to commend me and, since then, we've been e-mailing a couple times a week - which is probably the most we've ever communicated in my entire life. In those e-mails, I've learned so much more about my sister - her thoughts and experiences at the CDC, her advice on college, how my relationship with Adam mirrors her relationship with her husband, etc.

In all, we have come a long way as a family.

This is a recent e-mail I received from Abby that meant a lot to me...

"Okay, this was going to be longer......but I just wrote something nice and long, and then hit the friggin delete key by accident. So you get the abbreviated version now--argh!

Anyway, having just spent about 20 minutes listening to one of my favorite--albeit often gloomy and awesomely sarcastic (I appreciate dry wit--as it's the kind I favor myself!)--co-workers bemoan her possiblilty of being diagnosed with celiac disease, I had ample time (in the private of my head, that is) to marvel at your own comparatively stalwart reaction to diabetes. This woman was certain that being so diagnosed at age 32 was a tragedy, a tragedy! And I'll admit, I had to sympathize--no bakery goods would be hell for me! But she was so morose and pessimistic--so absolutely without hope or resilience--that it put my experience with you in better perspective. I've often heard Dad marvel that you don't bitch about your diabetes, but it takes listening to the bitching of someone with a similiar, life-long chronic condition to underscore how admirable your strength really is."

Halle Berry cured diabetes!

Amazing!

Was she among the thousands of scientists creating an artificial pancreas? Maybe she was one of the researchers manipulating stem cells to form pancreatic beta cells? Or, perhaps, she helped design a drug that utilizes a virus to intentionally infect cells with DNA to carry on insulin production?

Oh, no...her miracle cure is far simpler than any of that: all you have to do is "ween" yourself off of insulin! According to Halle, in this manner, an insulin-dependent diabetic (type 1) can magically transform into a non-insulin-dependent diabetic (type 2).

Holy shit! Why didn't anyone tell me about this before? The doctors said the insulin-producing cells in my pancreas were dead...but, if I follow Halle's expert advice, I can now bring them back to life! And it's as easy as taking less insulin - that useless glucose-absorbing hormone which I don't truly need.

Halle, you may be more attractive than Wilford Brimley, but you're an extremely poor spokeswoman for diabetes - both type 1 or type 2. Please educate yourself.

Bionic Woman

At every three-month endocrinology appointment, my doctor routinely asks if I have considered returning to insulin pump therapy. And I always politely say no.

I remain strongly anti-pump for a couple of reasons:

When I was on the insulin pump two years ago, it just did not work for me. For many people, it helps to improve diabetes control - but I didn't improve at all. Plus, the pump was a bigger hassle than it was worth - door knobs ripping out the tubing, scar tissue build up, allotting an hour of time to numb the injection site, irritating alarms beeping at three AM, disconnecting when showering, etc.

But, by far, my biggest turn off is how terribly conspicuous the insulin pump is. Illustrated by this picture of the continuous glucose monitoring system (the latest "improvement" in pump technology):



The smaller sensor checks your blood sugar every few minutes and relays the information to the pump, which responds accordingly - increasing or decreasing insulin.

It would be cool to, essentially, have an external pancreas that does most of the work for me...but I maintain that I will not go back on the insulin pump while it makes me look and feel like freakin' Bionic Woman.

One day, when the technology is perfected and the device is so discreet that only I can possibly know about it...I would love a sweet bionic pancreas.

"I love your MiniMed in purple!"

I love having a bonding experience with a random stranger when I see that they're wearing an insulin pump.

Treadmill Nazis

At my new gym, I have to beware of Treadmill Nazis. They like to peer over your shoulder to see whether or not you're obeying the 30-minute time limit. You better...or else!

Don't Pass Out

It's very rare that I have a day where I truly hate having diabetes. Yeah, it sucks but it's a waste of energy to spend time hating it. However, during my Psychology class yesterday...I really really fucking hated my diabetes.

While my teacher was lecturing, I noticed my hand was shaking a little as I was writing. I hadn't felt it yet but I knew immediately it was a sign my blood sugar was dropping. That's when a mental image of Frosted Flakes popped into my head. Fuck. I suddenly remembered that, in my rush that morning, I had taken five units of insulin but I had forgotten to eat the bowl of cereal. As my worry sunk in, I gradually felt the low blood sugar sinking in, as well. My next thought went to my blood sugar meter...which I had left in my room. Along with my glucose tabs. And my emergency glucagon shot. Double fuck. My wrist was also bare...I had forgotten to wear my medical identification bracelet.

Then I did something incredibly stupid: I just sat there...trying as hard as I could to ignore my low BG. The very last thing I wanted to do was to stand up and call attention to myself in front of 60+ strangers. So I sat silently for over ten minutes, shaking and feeling everything drain out of me (it kind of feels like running 10 miles without having eaten all day). Don't pass out don't pass out, I repeated over and over in my head.

But the panic rising in my chest finally compelled me to ask for help. Reaching my teacher's desk, I asked stupidly, "Is there a vending machine around here?" When she began to explain, however, I blurted out, "I don't have any money." I felt terribly aware of how helpless I was when I admitted at last, "I have a low blood sugar." And with that, tears suddenly began pooling in my eyes. I didn't know this woman I was crying in front of and I didn't know a soul in the entire class...which only intensified my embarrassment and panic.

Pausing the lecture, my teacher led me toward the exit but not before I had to turn to face the entire lecture room, filled with people staring at me curiously. Quickly, my teacher flagged down a Coke and, glancing at my wobbly knees, directed me to sit on a bench in the hallway (Thank God she wasn't one of the people who tries to offer me a stick of chewing gum). For the next ten minutes I gulped down the entire Coke, impatient for the sugar to enter my bloodstream and for my panic to subside. Fortunately, as my blood sugar began returning to normal, my rational thoughts began to return, as well. Why did I sit there for so long? Why didn't I have any sugar with me in the first place? Wow, I'm an idiot.

It just made me so angry that all of my seemingly little mistakes had brought about this awful situation. If only I'd simply remembered to eat my Frosted Flakes. Or to stick my glucose tabs in my backpack. Ugh...I'm not going to let that happen again.

Have you registered?

I appreciate their efforts...but, unfortunately, being followed by voter registration people on my way to and from classes has become a daily occurrence.

I just don't have the heart to shout, "Yes I am registered and I am voting for Obama! Now, leave me alone, I'm late to Chemistry!"