i have to admit, starting this blog made me nervous. it felt good to get that first part out- the repressed memories of childhood trauma that floated into my consciousness every once in a while. but the next part of this story is a whole other can of worms. the next part of this story has to deal with me. with my own experience with this disease. and the more i think about it- what it did to my childhood, my family, my psyche and my body, the angrier i become. no, diabetes is not cancer. it is not something that makes people envision the pain and unfairness of chemo or mastectomies or any other number of terrifying medical procedures and treatments that come with that dreaded disease. diabetes typically brings to mind elderly or obese people with a "sugar allergy". not a six year old rail thin girl whose future is now filled with needles and blood work and doctors and ostracism. not that. diabeetus is the joke disease- the one that fat comedians warn you about by telling you "if you eat too many twinkies you gonna lose that foot." cause it's okay to make fun of a disease that's associated with being overweight, right? all the stereotypes and second hand information that you've heard from people with a friend/uncle/grandparent that have struggled with diabetes must be true. . .
right?
i stayed in the hospital for a week after being diagnosed. i shared a large room with curtain partitions with about ten other kids ranging in age. i shared a television with a teenage girl that loved jason movies. i went to "school" in a room at the end of a long hallway on my floor. i made friends with kids that were suffering with all sorts of conditions- leukemia, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis. a nurse came into the room to poke my finger and give me a shot three times a day. it hurt. my body wasn't accustomed to the barrage of needles and the bruises added up and had me resembling a welch's grape within just a few days. it was lonely, even with all of my roommates, and it was difficult to sleep with everyone's iv's and other medical devices beeping and blipping. i got homesick, and i got upset when, seeing the girl across from me getting a special treat, being able to watch a disney movie, and asking for one of my own they brought me an informational video on my newly diagnosed illness. i got a card from my first grade classmates hoping that i get better soon, which put a smile on my face for a little while when i thought about coming back to school and telling them all kinds of stories about the hospital and basking in the glow of my curiosity inspired popularity.
mostly though, i still felt sick and my head felt foggy. this had all happened so fast and i wasn't sure what came next. it scared me that i could be fine and healthy one day and sick and diseased the next. i was miserable about the thought of no more sweets and being treated like a pincushion for the rest of my life. and if my dad was any example of what was to come down the road, i wasn't sure i wanted to grow up at all.
...
- a/woman/with/heart
- I'm 28. I feel a lot older than I should be. I currently reside with two of the most beautiful children to ever grace God's green Earth (I may be slightly biased though), a strong, handsome, supportive man that lets me live with him in return for love and care and a couple of whack-jobs with four legs that have been crashing on the couch every night for the past five years.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Starting Off
Okay, I know I really don't have that many followers and this blog isn't really anything but a stress reliever- it might as well be a random notepad laying around my house so I probably don't even have to address this, BUT--- if there is anyone out in the big, wide interwebs who actually did like to browse my thoughts from time to time- this little disclaimer is for you. :)
You may have noticed that I changed the title of my blog (and I'm sure if I do have any followers they're shaking their heads wondering what in the hell took me so long). When I first started this public diary experiment called blogging I treated it as one of my real life journals. I'd pop in when I felt "enlightened" and spout off some cryptic lesson that I felt life had taught me. I decided that wasn't the most valuable use of a webpage and it dawned on me that if I'm going to treat it as a journal, instead of being vague and unrelatable, I should actually journal. And in doing so, since this is a somewhat therapeutic process, I could somehow face my demons. In particular, a disease that I have lived with for over two decades.
I have type one diabetes.
I realize that this is not really an earth-shattering proclamation. I don't have cancer, or HIV. I didn't just come out of the closet or announce that I'm running for president. I have a treatable disease that millions and millions of people deal with every day. No, Wilfred Brimley is not my hero, and neither is Mary Tyler Moore. I didn't get this disease from eating too many Hostess cupcakes and I'm not at risk of losing my foot... not yet anyway.
I actually had a relatively normal childhood until I was about six years old. My father was a diabetic and took insulin shots every day but I barely noticed. I was too busy terrorizing our cats or playing with my next door neighbors or planning out my future as the next Mariah Carey to realize what was going on in anybody else's world.
Then one night while my mom was at work and my dad and I were at home (the more detail I try to remember about the before and after of the events that night, the fuzzier they become) he dropped to the floor without warning, clutching his right knee to his chest. His face was twisted in agony and discomfort and he rolled from side to side with tears in his eyes when suddenly it went white and his eyes widened in a panicked realization.
"They're gonna cut it off."
He whispered it into the air and, sitting on the floor, drenched in an anxious fear, next to my daddy, who had been smacked down by some invisible hammer, I tried to comprehend his words. They're going to cut what off? My brain raced with questions and theories as my father pulled himself up and dialed 911.
My memory is choppy, but vivid. The next thing I recall is my big, powerful daddy being strapped down on a stretcher by strange men in white while I stood on the landing of our stairs, looking down at him and being held by my grandmother's shaking hands as he cried over and over again, "I'm sorry, Rach, I'm so sorry."
They removed his leg from the knee down soon after and my father was left with a stump of a limb that I would sometimes pretend was a horse and imagined he was part mythical creature because in my five year old brain, what had happened to my dad was out of my realm of understanding. We were not at war. Regular, every day people with kids and a wife and a house and a dog and a job they came home from every day didn't suddenly start misplacing lower portions of their bodies. My friends dads had legs- both of them. I watched them walk away from the school holding their daughters hands as they picked them up after the last bell. I wondered why they got to keep theirs.
Then one day, I got thirsty. It was an incredible thirst that no amount of liquid could quench and it ran through me like a funnel. I started feeling sick to my stomach and enormously tired. I remember looking in the mirror at my face and seeing dark circles under my eyes that wouldn't wash off. I lost weight. My Mom would look at me with a worried expression and comment on how thin I had become.
After a few days, my dad told me he wanted to check my blood sugar. I'd seen him do this everyday for as long as I could remember. He'd take out the little electronic box with a screen on the front and press a pen to his finger, then- click! It would poke a hole and he would press the blood onto a little tab sticking out of the box. A few seconds later a number would appear on the screen and he would go about getting his insulin ready. I'd seen his friends try it before too- curious about what their magic number would be. I was intrigued and agreed to let him test me. I wasn't worried about the poke- I never really even gave it a thought until that little pen stabbed my finger and the pain was bearable and over quickly. His face showed nervousness as we waited for the number to appear and when it did his expression fell. He turned to me.
"Rachel," he said, "We need to go to the hospital."
You may have noticed that I changed the title of my blog (and I'm sure if I do have any followers they're shaking their heads wondering what in the hell took me so long). When I first started this public diary experiment called blogging I treated it as one of my real life journals. I'd pop in when I felt "enlightened" and spout off some cryptic lesson that I felt life had taught me. I decided that wasn't the most valuable use of a webpage and it dawned on me that if I'm going to treat it as a journal, instead of being vague and unrelatable, I should actually journal. And in doing so, since this is a somewhat therapeutic process, I could somehow face my demons. In particular, a disease that I have lived with for over two decades.
I have type one diabetes.
I realize that this is not really an earth-shattering proclamation. I don't have cancer, or HIV. I didn't just come out of the closet or announce that I'm running for president. I have a treatable disease that millions and millions of people deal with every day. No, Wilfred Brimley is not my hero, and neither is Mary Tyler Moore. I didn't get this disease from eating too many Hostess cupcakes and I'm not at risk of losing my foot... not yet anyway.
I actually had a relatively normal childhood until I was about six years old. My father was a diabetic and took insulin shots every day but I barely noticed. I was too busy terrorizing our cats or playing with my next door neighbors or planning out my future as the next Mariah Carey to realize what was going on in anybody else's world.
Then one night while my mom was at work and my dad and I were at home (the more detail I try to remember about the before and after of the events that night, the fuzzier they become) he dropped to the floor without warning, clutching his right knee to his chest. His face was twisted in agony and discomfort and he rolled from side to side with tears in his eyes when suddenly it went white and his eyes widened in a panicked realization.
"They're gonna cut it off."
He whispered it into the air and, sitting on the floor, drenched in an anxious fear, next to my daddy, who had been smacked down by some invisible hammer, I tried to comprehend his words. They're going to cut what off? My brain raced with questions and theories as my father pulled himself up and dialed 911.
My memory is choppy, but vivid. The next thing I recall is my big, powerful daddy being strapped down on a stretcher by strange men in white while I stood on the landing of our stairs, looking down at him and being held by my grandmother's shaking hands as he cried over and over again, "I'm sorry, Rach, I'm so sorry."
They removed his leg from the knee down soon after and my father was left with a stump of a limb that I would sometimes pretend was a horse and imagined he was part mythical creature because in my five year old brain, what had happened to my dad was out of my realm of understanding. We were not at war. Regular, every day people with kids and a wife and a house and a dog and a job they came home from every day didn't suddenly start misplacing lower portions of their bodies. My friends dads had legs- both of them. I watched them walk away from the school holding their daughters hands as they picked them up after the last bell. I wondered why they got to keep theirs.
Then one day, I got thirsty. It was an incredible thirst that no amount of liquid could quench and it ran through me like a funnel. I started feeling sick to my stomach and enormously tired. I remember looking in the mirror at my face and seeing dark circles under my eyes that wouldn't wash off. I lost weight. My Mom would look at me with a worried expression and comment on how thin I had become.
After a few days, my dad told me he wanted to check my blood sugar. I'd seen him do this everyday for as long as I could remember. He'd take out the little electronic box with a screen on the front and press a pen to his finger, then- click! It would poke a hole and he would press the blood onto a little tab sticking out of the box. A few seconds later a number would appear on the screen and he would go about getting his insulin ready. I'd seen his friends try it before too- curious about what their magic number would be. I was intrigued and agreed to let him test me. I wasn't worried about the poke- I never really even gave it a thought until that little pen stabbed my finger and the pain was bearable and over quickly. His face showed nervousness as we waited for the number to appear and when it did his expression fell. He turned to me.
"Rachel," he said, "We need to go to the hospital."
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