Fruits of Insanity

the day that is different

I spend a lot of time thinking about stories. I wouldn't want to live a story. Uncomfortable things happen in them because stories happen on the days that are different. A character is going through her life and is thrust into some situation that she wasn't expecting, Love happens or terror happens, something that takes her from what she expects into a new story line where strange things could potentially happened.

So, even though I love to read about all those different days, I prefer to live life at a more even keel. I live my boring life, love my family who treat me well. I go to a standard job that isn't filled with heroes or villains. I sleep comfortably, without the kind of storybook issues that take someone from once upon a time to happily ever after.

But when I was diagnosed with type one diabetes, I thought that I had entered a day that was different. I thought that my life was entering storybook territory, and while I wasn't entirely comfortable with it, at least I have some research experience with the phenomena.

Being diagnosed with a chronic disease is a story. It began the night before diagnosis, a Wednesday, when I felt the kind of ill that meant I didn't want to eat more than part of a spaghetti noodle. I made myself some warm jello, because that's what we did when we were sick and couldn't keep things down. It was the worst possible dinner in hindsight. I remember feeling short of breath, and Mama kept asking if I needed allergy meds, but my airway was clear. I just couldn't breathe, couldn't stand for more than a moment, couldn't move. I was thirsty and felt as though I was peeing out even more than I could drink.

With the knowledge I have now, I was exhibiting typical signs of diabetes. In fact, we had a friend who came over for a while and he had type two, so he should have seen the signs and sent me to the ER, but he didn't think of it because I didn't show the typical signs of T2. In fact, a few weeks later, when I was researching diabetes, I took an online quiz to determine whether I showed the danger signs. As a newly diagnosed person with diabetes, I literally burst into tears to realize that the quiz placed me firmly outside the danger zone.

As the story continued, I went to sleep that night. It was July. Mama was home but Dad was out of town for a contract with NASA, but he'd be home on Saturday. Two of my sisters, Joy and Maddie, had gotten married in June, so Joy was in Indiana with her new husband, and Maddie was living across town with Rachel, who had a one year old daughter Hayley. So in that house that night was Mama, Lorenzo, Rose, and I.

What followed was perhaps the strangest blessing of the entire story. I woke up in the middle of the night with nightmares. I felt as though I was in the middle of a true crime show, blood and guts everywhere. I left my room in the middle of the night and went to the bathroom. I was thirsty so I went to the kitchen to get some water. I went to the couch because I couldn't stand long enough to drink it. I needed more water. And for some reason, probably because I didn't want to have to get back out of bed and get more water again, I lay down in the floor of the kitchen with my glass of water next to my hand.

That's where Lorenzo found me the next morning. Sometime during the night I'd changed from sleep to unconsciousness. He woke Mama, who agreed that they couldn't wake me and called the paramedics.

And that's why those nightmares were a blessing. If I'd fallen into that diabetic coma in my bed, there was no way Mama would have worried about me still being asleep as she left for work that morning. She knew I was feeling ill. If I wasn't on the kitchen floor, they probably would not have found me and realized something was seriously wrong until I was dead.

As it was, the first thing that the paramedics asked at an unconscious person was, “does she have diabetes.”

“No.” And that was the truth. I was thirty one years old. No one in our family had diabetes. I was too old or too skinny for that.

By the time Mama got to the ER after me, the doctor was finished with me. He came out of the room and told my mother, “She has diabetes.”

“No she doesn't.”

He explained to my mother that yes I did. I had a blood glucose level of 693. I had diabetes. There was no doubt of it.

And that's the end of the story of my diagnosis.

But what of the story of diabetes. That's more problematic. Most of the time we don't talk or write about chronic diseases. We do talk about diseases. And acute disease. And the onset of a disease. And an episode of a disease. The day that is different. But what happens when a disease becomes part of the background noise of a life.

Diabetes doesn't creep up on me like cancer or the flu. Instead, it's the first finger stick of the day after I turn off my alarm clock and every meal that I eat and every muscle that I exercise and every mood that passes through my emotional landscape. It's four syringes per day, kept on a specific shelf so that I check to make sure one of them isn't missing, because that means I've forgotten my insulin before a meal. It's highs and lows that are in reference to blood sugar not mood.

It's timing trips to the store so that they aren't going to hit at the same time as a meal time dose of insulin. It's having to check every snack. It's learning to count carbohydrates so that my insulin dose matches what I eat.

Living with a chronic disease is like being on a merry go round that has to spin at a certain speed. Too fast, and it'll kick me off. Too slow and it'll kick me off. And so I keep going, constantly adjusting my weight and keeping me moving so that I don't die, and it never stops.

Sometimes that's frustrating. I once had a friend tell me that he couldn't understand how I could give myself shots. Four times a day. He couldn't do that.

I wonder what he would do if it came down to a chose between shots and death. Because that's my choice.

And so I live with my constant, chronic companion. Until we're sick of each other.

And I write the stories of my life. Not a day in my life, because diabetes isn't different for me. Instead I write about my diagnosis. Or about silly events that are part of my life now—places where I see the different and can tell a story from it.

Word count: 1202
Prompt 6: Chronic Disease Day (7/10)