A Life Of Moments

Welcome to Day 3 of Diabetes Blog Week! Today's prompt: Memories.

Today we’re going to share our most memorable diabetes day. You can take this anywhere.... your or your loved one's diagnosis, a bad low, a bad high, a big success, any day that you’d like to share.

I have many memorable diabetes moments; so many that they almost blur together into a life. Most of them feature horrible highs or lows (for highs, see, for example, the Super Bowl party that ended with a crunch, here). When it comes to lows, there's the day an intensely low blood sugar coincided with my first migraine aura, and I thought I was having a stroke, because I couldn’t say the words that I was thinking (“peaches” became “pockets”). There was the one time in undergrad that I missed a test because I went low and fell asleep after treating, but it had a happy ending.

I wish I could remember more days where I was blissfully unaware of my diabetes because it didn’t act up in any way. Paradoxically, these “no-hitter” sorts of days aren’t memorable because I don’t have to think about diabetes screwing with my life, and that’s a good thing.

My diagnosis day was memorable: the return of an ominous phone call from the doctor’s office, the “you have diabetes, honey,” from my mom, the immediate transfer over to my best friend’s birthday party with barely any time to process; me, a twelve-year-old declining cake and ice cream because I thought I could never eat it again.

Diabetes provides me with many moments of anger.  There was this one that occurred about an hour ago, before I wrote this. I’m going to have at least three or four surgeries this year, all for things that have nothing to do with diabetes (I’d never had surgery before I broke my elbow in March).  I had an awesomely fast recovery from the first, so I could say, “screw you, diabetes, and your ‘slower recoveries’!” Today I consulted with the oral surgeon who will remove my wisdom teeth. I have accepted that they need to be removed, so I have no anger about that. The conversation I had with the nurse, however, made my blood boil:


Nurse: Are you a well-controlled diabetic?

Me: Yes.
Nurse: So you never have blood sugar swings?

Me: (smiling) Actually, there's not a Type 1 diabetic alive who doesn't see BG fluctuations.

Nurse: So you're saying you're NOT well controlled.

Me: No, I'm just saying that every person with diabetes has ups and downs because it's a complicated -

Nurse: So you do not have control over your diabetes.

Me: *livid pause* I'M WELL-CONTROLLED.


Seething in indignation, this is Ilana Lucas, reporting from the front lines of the misinformation war.

Other memorable moments, however, are happier ones. These often involve the Diabetes Online Community and the effect it has had on my life. I will probably write about this in more detail tomorrow, but there was the moment that I finally truly felt understood by a wider community, the moment I started a Twitter account that dealt with diabetes to connect with others, the moment where I just started talking about diabetes in my “regular life” Twitter account because I’d come to the realization that I wasn’t “Ilana” and “Ilana’s Diabetes” – they were both part of me. There were the D-Meetups, the first time I truly went and met people from the Internet, that have afforded me meetings and/or friendships with amazing people like Jamie and Larry and Kelly and many others.  There was the moment I decided to get a pump, and the moment my endo finally told me she was proud of me.

There were the moments where I achieved more than many might think possible, including my awards and degrees from two of the best universities on the planet, and my artistic and extracurricular pursuits. There was the moment when I stood in front of a class for the first time, knowing they were trusting me to be a professor and a role model, and all the highs and lows and surreptitious site changes in the classroom and the pump conspicuously buzzing in my underwear could not take that away from me.

There was the moment my partner, who has seen me through all the moments of sickness and health for the past almost nine years, told me he was ready for a lifetime of moments and asked me to marry him.

Good moment.

That means there’s a moment coming up next year that I desperately want to be memorable, but not because of diabetes: my wedding.

Diabetes has done so much to attempt to spoil my fun that I am terrified of what my wedding day will bring. So much planning and money and work, and the knowledge that it could still be a Bad Diabetes Moment sends chills down my spine. Yes, there are logistical details, too, like figuring out how to put a pump pocket in my dress, but the uncertainty that is there is the worst part. It’s like how some people worry about rain. Rain I can deal with; there’s an indoor ceremony space. There’s no way to run away from this.

A Sondheim lyric I am fond of quoting goes as follows: “Oh, if life were made of moments/Even now and then a bad one!/But if life were only moments/Then you’d never know you had one.” That lyric gives me hope. My wedding – whether my blood sugar is high or low – is one moment – one important moment, but still, just one moment –of a whole life; one with ups and downs, but overall one which I will be able to analyze outside of the moments, and one I intend to have well lived. I told the nurse that everyone with diabetes has ups and downs. That’s true of blood sugar, moments, and life in general. It’s true for everyone else, too.

So I’m looking forward to my wedding moment, but I’m also looking forward to the moments before and after. Because, if you zoom out a little, all those moments blur into a life.

-Ilana

We, the Undersigned... (Diabetes Petitions)

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On the second day of Diabetes Blog Week, our prompt is:

Recently various petitions have been circulating the Diabetes Online Community, so today let’s pretend to write our own. Tell us who you would write the petition to – a person, an organization, even an object (animate or inanimate) - get creative!! What are you trying to change and what have you experienced that makes you want this change?

I couldn’t choose just one; here are my petitions for the day. (Sing with me: "On the second day of D-Blog Week, my prompter gave to me: four D-petitions...") Feel free to sign!

Attn: Pancreas
We, the undersigned caregivers of a faulty pancreatic unit, believe that it is time you returned to work. You have used up your unemployment benefits, and we all know that, like real unemployment benefits, it’s not nearly enough to live on, or at very least you can’t maintain the same quality of life you had before, while you had your job. Unlike most on unemployment, you have a job ready and waiting for you. Most people on unemployment want to work and are just having a tough time. You are sullying their good name, as you just seem recalcitrant. 

Once you have returned to work, we demand the return, retroactively, of all the time lost and all the moments ruined by dealing with your bullshit. This includes, but is not limited to, time spent taking shots, putting in pump sites, calibrating basals, calculating boluses, carb counting, glucose testing, fasting and non-fasting blood tests and A1Cs, time spent in doctor’s offices, time spent worrying, thinking, sleep lost due to the terror of the number.

You will also be held liable for any complications caused due to your period of inaction.

Attn: BG Readings
We, the bleeding undersigned, insist that you behave consistently in response to consistent stimuli. It is patently unfair to display such erratic behaviour to those who have close dealings with you. This costs them a great deal of time and energy, something that could be avoided if you would merely behave in any sort of reliable, sane, or understandable fashion. Please follow some sort of natural or physical law, or enter rehab. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. As this is your modus operandi, we petition to have you legally declared insane; we will not be responsible for any of your consequences.

Attn: Society and comedians at large
We, the weary undersigned, demand that you cease and desist using the term “diabetes” as a synonym to the terms “fat” “lazy” or “ugly”. This constitutes slander, or libel (depending on whether the words are spoken or written). As you can see, this is not a true estimation of the facts. Please, in the future, laugh at diabetes itself, not persons with diabetes. There is a difference. This is one of many differentiations that must be made.

The following obnoxious statements are to be discontinued, on punishment of
1) fine, and
2) showing the speaker’s day-to-day health and eating habits to the world at large for scrutiny:

• “Someone ordered a burger and a diet Coke?! What an idiot!”
• Someone “deserves” diabetes
• “You must have eaten a lot of sugar as a kid”
• “That show/cute animal photo/song is so saccharine, it just gave me diabetes”
• “Diabetes” used as a monolithic entity. Type 1 and Type 2 must be differentiated, though the rule about shaming or jokes applies to both.  It’s like talking about “cancer.” Cancers share many similar characteristics, but having a mastectomy for lung cancer would be problematic.
• “Can you eat that?” (The speaker will owe the wronged party a meal of his or her choice.)
• “At least it’s not…”
• “But it’s easy now that you have insulin/you’re cured now”

The phrase “just wait five years” will be punishable by a five-year jail term that extends for five more years at the end of the term, until the injured party is satisfied.

Special sanction for news providers:
Any facts about diabetes that are reported to the general public must be accurate and specific to the type of diabetes being mentioned. Dangerously inaccurate information may result in the website or reporter being charged with negligence.

Wilford Brimley references may be used, sparingly.

Attn: Diabetes Online Community
We, the grateful undersigned, petition you to continue to be open, giving and awesome. We insist that there be an official “DOC Day” to recognize your amazing ability to save and improve lives.

Signed,
Ilana

Understanding the Endo

 

Welcome to the official Diabetes Blog Week at Diaturgy! D-Blog Week, started by Karen at Bitter-Sweet Diabetes four years ago, was instrumental in getting this blog up and going, so I owe her a debt! It's also so much fun to participate in the community every year, all choosing the same topics.  Not content to leave well enough alone, however, I worked in a surprise; I kind of took today's prompt and turned it completely around.

Today's prompt: Often our health care team only sees us for about 15 minutes several times a year, and they might not have a sense of what our lives are really like. Today, let’s pretend our medical team is reading our blogs. What do you wish they could see about your and/or your loved one's daily life with diabetes? On the other hand, what do you hope they don't see?

Dear Endocrinologist:

This week is Diabetes Blog Week, and today’s assignment is for us to write a note to you telling you what we wish you’d understand about us in terms of the toll diabetes takes on our lives. It was perfectly timed, because I saw you today for the first time in six months. I was the first appointment of the day, and for once, I didn’t have to wait for an hour or more.  My numbers were both exciting and disappointing this time. Exciting, because the A1c I did in February was 7.1: a life-with-diabetes record. Disappointing, because thanks to breaking my elbow, pain medication, a stressful semester and no real time to exercise, I’m back up to 7.6. Endocrinologists often seem to go into “airport security” mode; with older data, they try to solve the problem that has already happened and been dealt with rather than the unseen problem ahead; my broken elbow is mostly likely the shoe bomber of incidents; stupid and scary and probably not happening again, but I guess I’ll take off my shoes at the office now.  I do wish you’d appreciate the utter unpredictability of my life and work a little more; I can’t just “take on fewer responsibilities” for my health; I take the schedule I’m given. When the office says, “so, Mondays are good to book six months from now?” That’s two semesters away, so damned if I know my schedule. It’s always going to be a crapshoot.

Here’s the thing, though. I’ve already written a “what you should know” post. It’s here. It’s comprehensive. I’m not interested in writing a version of it again.  I don’t want to draw a line in the sand and see you as an enemy, an impediment to my progress.

I feel lucky, in many ways. I feel like you do listen to me. You know I’m planning a wedding, and you asked how it was going, and whether I was stressed about it. You know what I’m up to in life and you seem genuinely concerned about my well-being. So I’m going to deviate from the assignment today, because today I’m going to try to understand you. For the first time, now that I’ve been a professor for two and a half years, I think I really can.

We had all of our difficulties when I was a teen, and into my early twenties. Some of the biggest issues were during my own college years. I felt you didn’t understand me, or my life. You said you couldn’t understand why I “couldn’t just do this,” a twisted rewrite of an awesome diabetes social media slogan. I felt like one of a zillion patients. You didn’t have time for me, to truly understand. You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t have diabetes. In a way, I was both happy and resentful when our relationship finally got better, clicked and soared; when I got the pump, when my numbers came down radically, when you felt I finally got serious about my health. Why only like me when I'm a "good" diabetic?

Replace “health” with “class,” though, and I could be one of my own students.

You see, I know what it’s like to have a demanding schedule, and to have 120 people whose progress I’m tasked with following over the course of a semester. I know how hard it is to sit and meet with everyone, to truly track progress; to give more than the most cursory comments about improvements to development, analysis, and grammar, because there’s NO TIME. If I met with each of my students for 15 minutes a week, that would be 30 hours with no breaks, let alone all the teaching and the prepping and the marking.  All of my comments, besides on drafts that nobody has time to write many of, can only deal with old data; how to fix a paper that's already been handed in for marks.

I know it’s loads more fun to work with a serious, passionate, excellent student who gets me and my subject; we talk, we fly and I don’t really have to do that much “work.” I know how much nicer it is to have a student who actually wants to improve. I know that I catch myself thinking, even with students who have English as a second language and horribly stressful home lives and illnesses and who deal with raising young children while being young themselves and are one step from poverty, “I don’t understand why you can’t just do this.” After all, I can do this. Look at all the studying I’ve done. Look at all the other people’s words I’ve learned and analyzed. Look at how good I am. I'm a model student, and I chose this course of study.

But you didn’t, my students. You didn’t choose this. English isn’t a major at my college. It’s a requirement. It’s difficult for many of my students; it’s not natural to their bodies. It’s not a first language, either literally, or metaphorically. Instead, it’s a hurdle they’ll have to deal with for the rest of their working lives. And, for me, in the end, it all comes down to the numbers: did they pass, or fail? I can only give so many marks for trying and working hard; in the end the work has to show, and measure up to an arbitrarily set standard. Many of their systemic language issues are such that I have no chance of fixing them in 15 short weeks, though I drill and drill.

I care about my students. I care deeply. I try my hardest to listen, to understand their lives and to make them easier. I know, however, that I need to be met halfway for true success, while I live in fear of failing someone who is truly in need. I’ve become a counselor for 17-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 60-year-olds whose life experience is beyond mine, whose problems I may never truly understand, but I know one thing, and that’s my subject. I know it as much as anyone. And I try to do my best with what I have and what my students give me. I’m only human, and I might flounder around a bit, but I’m doing my honest best.

In the world of teaching, I am you; I am my endo. But, while I have my students for a semester or two, and keep in touch with a few of them, you have stuck with me, through thick and thin, for the better part of a decade. You have seen me not care, and you have seen me come through the other side. Thank you.

So enough about you needing to understand me. Because, today, I needed to understand you. And I think I finally do.

-Ilana

Di-ronic

This began with an "empty cartridge" alarm waking me up at 6am on a Sunday. My apologies to Alanis. Warning: much like the original, many of these situations do not fit the technical definition of irony (however, I think this song might have a higher percentage of actually ironic incidents than the original).

A young girl, turning thirteen

She gets diagnosed…on her best friend’s birthday

Getting low but not drunk

From your chardonnay

It’s a death row pardon

But you still have to pay

And isn’t it Di-ronic

Don’t you think?

When you exercise

And your blood sugar strays

You eat utter crap

Oh and NOW you’re in range

When the media say

Type 1 and 2 are the same

And who would have thought

It figures

Mr. Play It Safe

Was afraid to drive

He tested every time

Just so he’d stay alive

One day his BG crashed

He’d only gone for a block

The news said – treat him with insulin

He’s in diabetic shock

And isn’t it Di-ronic

Don’t you think?

It’s like everyone

Thinking you should be fat

It’s some clueless guy

Asking can you eat that

Your endo knows you less

Than #dsma Twitter chat

And who would have thought

It figures

And D has a funny way of sneaking up on you

When you think everything’s okay and everything’s going right

But D has a funny way, of helping you out when

You think everything’s gone wrong- it makes you the person you are today

An immune system

That’s just making you sick

The nurse judging your whole life

From one finger stick

It’s like you’ve got one strip left

And all you get’s “Error Five”

It’s nearly dying of a low

From the substance that keeps you alive

And isn’t it Di-ronic, don’t you think?

A little too Di-ronic – and yeah I really do think

You do the same thing,

Get a different result

And you always think

That it must be your fault

Your D’s juvenile

Though you’re now an adult

And who would have thought

It figures

Well you never sought

But now you can’t hide

The province pays for pumps

But not the insulin inside?

“Oh, it’s not that bad;”

Well it’s just your whole life

And who would have thought

It figures

And D has a funny way of sneaking up on you

And D has a funny, funny way,

Of helping you out

Helping you out

Happy Blue Friday!

For those of you who haven't heard of it, Blue Friday is a weekly awareness "event" where blue is worn in support of diabetes awareness. It's pretty easy to do, especially when it's your favourite colour. Well, I'd like to show you how committed I am to Blue Friday; for me, right now, every day is Blue Friday!

Happy Blue Friday, everyone! Fortunately, although my diabetes won't go away in a few weeks, this cast will.

-Ilana

Sweet Sixteen/Broken

Today, my diabetes turns sixteen. It could drive a car (while I still can't, partially because I'm afraid of low blood glucose levels while driving) if it passed the written. Sweet Sixteen is both appropriate and ironic when it comes to diabetes; I've certainly spend the past 16 years "sweeter" than I would have been otherwise.

I always see my Diaversary as a time of reflection on the battles of the past and my hopes for the future, as well as providing myself with cake for the present. It coincides with the birthday of a friend who I've known longer than I've known D, but whose birthday always gets co-opted by memories of going to the party on my day of diagnosis, thinking I couldn't eat the cake anymore. I was one of those lucky few who got to be out and about on my diagnosis day, caught by a screening check and not by a hospital. Now, though I have intimate acquaintance with hospitals for the various specialist appointments (I joke that I use my OHIP, or health card, more than most people use their credit cards, but thankfully I almost never have to pay the bill that results) it's almost never an emergency, and never a D-emergency. I'm doing well. There was that time I needed an IV in freshman year. That time in 2005 that a freak storm and a stage light required getting my head stapled back together (and you think the fact that it was an unpaid internship was bad!)

And then there was last Saturday and Sunday (the 9th and 10th).

Friday night had been great. I had been out all day with friends (it was my spring break, soon to be literal) and was coming home with Dan after discussing save-the-date card designs with a designer friend. I was really excited about the concept, happy, and a little smug to have this wedding-planning thing in hand, snagging our 10th dating anniversary date for the wedding. Pride comes before a fall, apparently. I stepped off the bus, and on to a sheet of black ice that had thawed and re-frozen due to the day's temperature fluctuations. With my foot taking so big of a step onto nothing and me holding two bags, I was unprepared and didn't have a chance. Every single ounce of my weight concentrated on the first point to hit the pavement; my left elbow. Dazed and in horrifying pain, I eventually struggled to my feet because I thought Dan was going to panic if I didn't. I slowly followed him home. I shouldn't have let that one taxi go by, but I couldn't imagine that I was actually broken. It had never happened before. Even if my elbow was clicking around, my coat was on and I couldn't see anything.

I gingerly took my coat off at home to inspect the damage. No cut, no bruise, but, as Dan helpfully observed, "your elbow isn't in the right place anymore." Called a cab and to the hospital we went, coat draped over me like a misshapen fur stole. I couldn't stop shaking until I was mercifully given heated blankets in Emerg, but I kept it stoic, laughing and joking with everyone involved, refusing to scream even as a joke (and most of that was before the morphine!) My elbow was in two pieces apart from each other. I needed surgery for the first time in my life. I was terrified, and am still afraid that ugly scarring will have to be hidden during my wedding photos.

After coming home from the hospital. Ignore how bad I look. I have reasons.

I was sent home from the hospital with a cast. Total cost of everything, besides painkillers: $30 for the sling. Thanks, Canada! (Well, it was your ice that dropped me.) The surgery was the next day (I thought there would be more of a wait, but the surgeon has a slot open). I was really worried about being put under, but the worst thing was the IV hurting a bit and the feeling of claustrophobia under the oxygen mask. Everyone was super nice, though  was sad they said getting my cast signed wasn't good for it. The ONLY reason I had longed for a cast as a child and I couldn't do it? Bah! The rest of the day, after I joked with the nurses, was a haze of nausea and pain.  I was going to go in and teach the next day, but I had to bow out. I then taught all my other classes, graded, and went to meetings and rehearsal, holding on by a thread. It's been some of the worst pain I've ever felt, and continuous. I have one prescription painkiller left, which makes me...nervous.

The worst thing is the helplessness, the length of time it takes to do everything, and the tiredness and frustration. I am left-handed, so I've needed to learn to write a bit with my right hand, and type what I can't. Typing takes forever and is utterly exhausting because it's one-handed and I'm in a terrible position the whole time with a useless limb in the way. I don't like being dependent or weak (story of my life with diabetes, magnified). I don't like having my shoes put on, my hair washed, my meat cut. I don't like that I can only play half my part on bells, though many are amazed I'm playing at all, or that I came back to work so soon. The problem is that I'm so behind in grading now, and when I do, it takes forever. I feel like I'm running a marathon just typing this. Everything D sucks with one arm. Testing BG? How do you squeeze the finger properly? Putting in a site with one arm? Someone has to pinch for you, and it better be on my right side or it's really hard to get to. Even clipping my pump on is a pain.

I go back for a new cast on Tuesday. I hope my arm looks okay and that D (or my stubbornness) isn't causing slower healing; my numbers have been pretty good, all things considered. Beiing broken sucks, but at least I know that, next year, this will almost for sure be a thing of the past, while my other "brokenness"-my trial, my sentence, my experience that has helped shape me and make me what I am- will be celebrating its Sweet Seventeen, even though I still won't let it get behind the wheel. Though I am broken, at least this break is curable; it will heal thanks to love, understanding, get-well cake, a fiance who puts together my taxes and a lack of predators.

It's a rude beginning to a new D-year, but I'll take any excuse for love and cake. Theoretically, things can only improve from here, right? (This had better not jinx anything!)

Exhaustedly Yours,

Ilana

Low

Yesterday, as I was rushing from work to appointment (one hour on transit) to rehearsal (another 30-45 minutes), I felt that old, familiar, sinking feeling. Low blood sugar. Insufficient blood glucose. A hypoglycaemic incident. Whatever asinine thing the media decides to describe it as, such as "a diabetic attack" or some such vague garbage.  When Diabetics Attack is the name of my proposed reality show. I'm sure it will be very popular.

When my BG goes low, sometimes I feel like I'm about ready to attack. I don't think things through as well, or consider complexities and implications. I get angry and irritable and greedy. It's suddenly all about me and there's no charitable thought towards others, as long as I've "got mine." I feel like I'm dying out and I'm scared. It's what I imagine being a member of the Tea Party to be like.

Low blood glucose is a little like being drunk, in the worst possible way, with added hands shaking, cold sweat, and the feeling that your life force is draining out of the soles of your feet. Your head rushes. The glucoaster roars downward. Your pulse pounds. Tunnel vision becomes inevitable. Standing becomes an unimaginable feat. Powering yourself up a flight of stairs? There are 100-pound weights around your ankles. When someone who has never experienced real hypoglycaemia describes the experience of not eating for a while and feeling hungry, irritable and a bit shaky and week, I can only smile, both because I'm happy they've never had to experience the real danger, and because it's a polite but very muted understanding of the event. When I'm really low, there is a danger signal in my brain that says "No really you are going to pass out and die this time for sure." But there's another part of my brain that says "don't be late you have to get where you're going what's wrong with you are you going to let this stop you you weakling." (When I'm really low, my brain does not use punctuation; there's no time.)

I made my way through the molasses that was the air, past the people collecting for Second Harvest (in my tunnel vision, I couldn't stop to take out money; with my lizard brain it seemed too painful to listen to them talk about people who needed food). It was rush hour, but I managed to slump my way into a middle seat on the subway. I was so thankful there were no elderly people or pregnant women or obviously-disabled people around; nothing makes me feel guiltier on the subway (besides rushing by a talented busker, charity collection, or person down on his/her luck) than not wanting to relinquish my seat to someone "needier" when I look so hale and healthy, but my invisible disability is killing me at the moment. I hope everyone sees my shaking hands and the colour drained from my face, which is already very pale, and doesn't judge.

My trusty grape Dex. (source: Dex4.com)

Luckily, I had provisions with me. I ate two granola bars in quick succession, and popped open my glucose tabs, eating about five. I forced myself to stop after that, though at that point everything in the train car still looked edible. It's like that Troy McClure "educational" film about the meat industry on The Simpsons: "Don't kid yourself, Jimmy. If that cow had the chance he'd eat you and everyone you care about." I don't know if it was just my own low-induced paranoia, or reality, but suddenly I felt judgmental eyes on me, the girl who had just wolfed down two granola bars and what likely looked like a tube of candy. I turned the tube outward so anyone who was looking good see that it had a medical tagline printed on it.

I could stand to lose a few pounds, but I'm an average size. Taller than the average woman, big-boned, a decent weight for all of these factors. It's actually a major thing for me to say this, because I'm actually the first person to call myself fat. If I can tear myself away from self-judgment for a minute, though, I can say that I'm certainly not "officially" fat or obese. I have always been self-conscious about my weight and the size of my frame, however, and I was wearing a fairly puffy coat, it being the last gasp of February.  At the moment where I started panicking over the perceived judgment of my fellow subway patrons (remember that blog that mocked people eating in the New York subway?) I came to a bizarre realization: I am more self-conscious about treating a low in public than I EVER was about taking a shot in public, or testing my blood in public.

Has that happened to anyone else? Is that strange?

Treating a low in public is different from performing a medical operation. For all intents and purposes, to others, it just looks like you're stuffing your face and, if you're on the subway, that you can't wait the 15-30 minutes to get where you're going. I couldn't. To give you some idea, after over-treating with the two sweet granola bars and 5 glucose tabs (probably 80g of carbohydrate), going to rehearsal, not taking any correction bolus at all, and coming home, I tested, thinking I was probably at least 10 if not 15 (instead of being somewhere between 4-8). I was instead barely up into the normal range, at 4.2. This was actually worrisome; just how low had I been? It's hard to test on the subway, especially when squished into a middle seat, so I hadn't, as there was no way that could have been anything but a low.

Eating isn't causing my diabetes, I wanted to say loudly. It's saving me from it. I'm so used to people judging people with diabetes over food that I feel ashamed to "overeat" in a public space, even if it's necessary, even if my diabetes isn't the "weight" kind.

And that, I have to say, makes me feel pretty low.

-Ilana