The End

I started this blog with very little intention as to where it would go.  I slowly began to realize that besides the therapy it provided, it served as a yardstick.  I would close it when I felt ready.

I am ready. 

I have made it to the point where diabetes is a normal part of my life.  It's all under control.  It doesn't affect other parts of my life (though some connections were tangential or non-existant).  

I spent almost three weeks in Europe over the holiday.  It served two purposed: to cleanse myself of the former three months, and perhaps a final test.  I didn't have high blood sugar once, low only a few times, and managed with a tremendous amount of english beer.  

I am no political-correctness nut.  I hate those who are.  So the following has nothing to do with labels per-say.  

I began this process as a diabetic.  It was all encompassing.  It consumed me.

I end as a person with diabetes.  It's one part of my life which I have to monitor, but only in the back of my mind.  It's an afterthought.

I can live with the afterthought.

Liberated

Two months later, acceptance.

I blamed a number of social issues I have had on this disease.  At first, it was because I couldn't eat or drink.  Then it was because things hadn't normalized.  Then there was something psychologically wrong.

It was none of these things (the latter, though, arguably).  It was an excuse.  I was going through a social transition.  And I think it's complete.  

In the last 24 hours I've said what I needed to say some specific people.  Things will be better in their absence.

(I didn't kill anyone, despite how ominous that sounds.  But if I did, I'd harvest their pancreases.)

(Pancrei?)

Diabetes made me reëvaluate my life.  In a weird way, I am appreciative of that.

But couldn't I have just been struck by lightning?  

Pump It Up

As I type these words, it's in me.  As I'll finish this post, and go back to write my paper, at 11:44 in Duques Hall, room 250, it will still be in me.  

My friends, I'm on the pump.

A lovely woman came and taught me how to use it.  It took a while to be able to put the needle in (it was about this long -----------------).  

And that's that.  Insulin, 24/7/364 (it's Christian).  

Fairness

I went to speak to a counselor (not the fun kind).  I was surprised when in the midst of talking, he asked me if I ever thought that this was not fair.  I told him that it was a stupid thing to think--what is fairness, after all.  Fairness in the health sense is the thought that some higher power gave me a disease rather than, perhaps, someone more deserving of a disease.  Being that the highest power that I believe in is The New Yorker, this is a silly thought.

But damn, did that plant a thought into my head.

I don't think of my diagnosis as unfair.  It happened.  But I have begun to have less tolerance for those who have their health and, frankly, do stupid things.  It has materialized mostly as I watch people I know and people I don't know smoke.  Growing up with a mother who smoked, my frustration was nothing new.  But it's been taken to a new level.

So in that sense, it's not fair.  I didn't smoke because of asthma (add it to the list) but I also ate healthy and organic.  And look where it got me.  

Intelligent design proponents, eat your heart out.

I am afraid no more!

Fuck it, he said, parousing the aisles of Trader Joe's.  I will not let diabetes stand between me and my love.

I bought chococats.  To paraphrase Michael Stipe: Snack unafraid.  I'll not be hungry instead.

In another life

Three days ago I celebrated the one month anniversary of the diagnosis.  Looking back from then, it was hard to remember a time when I wasn't monitoring my food, stressing about insulin, and the like.  Really, it's as if that was all in another life.

Every now and then, I feel like I can't go to sleep, so I go through old pictures, via Facebook.  My drink of choice this evening: camp pictures.

Anyone who knows me will know that camp is one of the loves of my life.  Nothing in this world means more to me than it and nothing has shaped me more than it.  This is putting it mildly and briefly. 

But in recollections of camp, I do remember a time before my fingers looked like bleeding starfish.  It was a time before anything in this wretched Sophomore year happened.  It was easy.

Nothing is easy anymore.  My living situation - not easy.  School - not easy.  Friends - not easy.  Family - never easy.  

It's better to do one thing well than many things with mediocrity.  I'm beginning to wonder even one is doable.