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.

My Professor, the Supreme Dick

I'm not one to throw insults around (at least where they can be cemented) but this one is apt.  Here is an email exchange with one professor I have, in a class in which my midterm grade was sub-par.

-----------------------------------

Professor J****s,

I have a feeling this might be in vain, and under normal circumstances, I know it would be.  But I wanted to ask you about my midterm grade.

I lost most of my points on the multiple choice.  But specifically, most of the questions I got incorrect came from a class I missed when I was in the hospital.  Questions #7, 8, 9, 13, 18, and 23 pertained to the lecture on ************  ********* policies, and while I made sure to read that chapter, I missed out on some information that was on the exam.

I was hoping there might be some sort of extra credit, or at least consideration, that I could do given my circumstances.  My grade was a 73, and those questions amounted to twelve points that I missed.

Thank you for your consideration,

---------------------------------------------------

This was the one-line response:

No, sorry.  Suggest you try to improve on the next exam.

-------------------------------------------------

Are you fuming?  I am.

There are a lot of things I could say about someone like this.  Now, I understand if I cannot be granted an extra credit assignment.  Okay, it was a long shot.  I can also understand why, at the moment, extraordinary considerations cannot be taken.  Perhaps something in the final grade could be factored in.

But the only thing I have to say to this one line, snobbish in its blue font, is that it is the mark of a supreme douchebag.  (Not to mention that the second set of words is a fragment, you illiterate).  The reason I missed that class wasn't that I got drunk and broke my leg.  It was not under my control.  A part of my body that should work stopped working.  Had I attended that class, I would have left Against Medical Advice, which is the dumbest thing for a single lecture.  I'm not sure what was expected of me: should I have stormed out in a gown and hospital socks?

So my question to you, professor, is the following: what the fuck is wrong with you?  It's not that my request was denied.  It was the snippy, almost sardonic response with which my request was met.  You're an adjunct with a day job, not Noam Chompsky.  And on top of it all, you're a shitty lecturer who expects all the knowledge to come from readings and for class periods to amuse you with your stupid egotistical tales.  

Seeing as how the grade is indiscriminately based on two tests, with no other factors, I'm strongly considering linking you to this hallowed blog, you malicious ogre.  

P-U-M-P

I don't know what you heard about me.  

But if you can't get no insulin out of me. 

No snicker bars no duds no can-dy.  

I'm on a mother fucking P-U-M-P.

Essentially, I'm taking the baby steps towards a pump.  But the above line is a much better way of telling you this information.

A Spoonful of Sugar Makes the Medicine Ineffective

Disclaimer: the title of this post was just something I thought was clever.  It has nothing to do with the post.

I don't believe in karma.  I don't think there's any cosmic force keeping things in balance.  I'm a nonbeliver.  But if I did, this would certainly support the hypothesis.

In the middle of the summer, one night at camp, one of my great loves in life, I sent a text message to a few people close to me.  I don't remember the wording, but it was something close to this:

"This might just be late night ramblings, but between camp and school, I'm about as happy as I've ever been."

Happiness cometh, happiness leaveth.  Or something like that.

The precipice I fell down was steep and sudden.  It changed my life.  It made me not enjoy the things I used to enjoy.  It made me think differently.  It made me think badly.  It took away the ability to care about things I once cared about.  It took away from me.

For want of not turning this, once again, into a livejournal, I'll leave things there and get back to the disease.

I successfully traveled with diabetes, although insulin in a moving bus was a terrible experience.

Making the wrong decision and knowing it

I know right now I'm doing the wrong thing.  I'm sitting in class, one which the teacher has been accommodating for, and I can feel that my sugar is low.  I should probably be eating something, but I don't was to be disrespectful to the professor.  I left early last time.  

Oh well.  If nothing else, I'll get to feel drunk without being it.

The last few days

I've not ceased writing.  This post is essentially a place holder.  I've had a rough few days, but in the interest of this not becoming a LiveJournal, I won't be airing grievances with life online, at least in public.

Open Letter to GW Hospital: Go Fuck Yourself

Dear GW Hospital-

I gave you the benefit of the doubt.  I waited in your ER for 18 hours.  I watched as I was served a sugar-filled breakfast the morning after my diagnosis.  I stood idly by as a nurse referred to a glucose monitor as an insulin tester.  I didn't flinch when it took you 2 days to up my insulin.  I didn't blink when two nurses seemed to have different instructions.  I sat passively as you said I could be discharged and then retreated, keeping me another night.  I figured you'd give me some education eventually, and you did not.

And today, I find out that your nutrionist told me the wrong information.  There is no finite amount of carbs I can eat.  It is based on insluin dosage, which should not be standard for every meal, you twat.

If I seem angry, I am.  speaking to someone who knows what the shit they're talking about was refreshing.  I realize it's a teaching hospital, which makes me more nervous for the future of our healthcare.  

Unless you have a gunshot wound, a bleeding ulcer, or collapse within a ten yard radius, I suggest you look elsewhere to treatment and education.  And if you're going into labor, take a tip from the good Gov. Palin: fly somewhere else.

Liveblogging the Endocrinologist

Just kidding.  But will have updates later.

Tangentially

The title of this entry is one of my favorite words.  I try to use it as often as I can.  It works for this post...tangentially.

I had to go to the zoo today for an anth lab, and decided to bike there.  It'd been a while since I rode anywhere of substance.  So when Connecticut Ave became steep, I wanted to die.  I was breathing incredibly fast - yay for my other chronic illness, asthma - and had to walk up.

This is beginning to effect a lot of parts of my life, and I need to stop that.

Post Script:  Observing tamarin monkeys only made me miss indian food.

For those keeping track

International Politics Exam

Environmental Policy Midterm Exam

Economics Midterm Exam

Biological Anthropology Exam

Iraq Paper

My blood sugar is beginning to stabilize.  Schoolwork, after missing a week of classes, has not.

Evolution de la Cabinet

I apologize if this blog has become a never-ending rant about sadness pertaining to food.  If you would like a happier food blog, I highly recommend seriouseats.com.

There was a time in which my refrigerator and pantry were lined with breads, cheeses, fruits, cookies, starchy vegetables, and specialty items.  It's different now.  Relics of the past remain, taunting me until they've gone bad.  Now, stacks of sardines and sliced lunch meat fill that space.  Frozen meals and almonds have replaced baguettes and brie.  Herring has replaced hummus.  Pistachios have replaced pastries.  

I don't feel sick.  And I don't like acting as if I do.

How are you?

The question which found its way miraculously into the title of this entry is one I'm frequently asked.  It's a hard question to answer.  It can go one of two ways, really:

-Well, I'm hungry all the time, feel a bit like a pin cushion, and am uncertain as to how I am going to keep this up for the rest of my life.

or

-Good.

The more correct answer is somewhere in the middle: I don't know.  I don't know how I am because never have I felt sick.  Only the people in white coats told me I was sick.  

If you want to know how I am, I'm not the best person to ask: consult my blood sugar tester.

Wisdom

While in the hospital, I was approached by an older man in a white coat.  A former Doctor who was now solely a teacher, softspoken and stolid, he asked if a med student could do a routine history and physical.  I was there, so what the hell, might as well, donate my body to science while I can be thanked for it.

The student got most of the numbers wrong.  It was cute.

At the end, the teacher thanked me, and said something that stuck with me.  "I was told this by a mentor 60 years ago," he began.  "The way to live a long life is to get a chronic disease and take really good care of it."  

That was the last I saw of him.  But not the last I thought of him.

Associations

There are a number of famous diabetics.   The two most famous I can think of bring with them far different associations.  Halle Berry and Osama bin-Laden.  

Not sure whether I'm closer to a Bond-girl or a terrorist.

John McCain would decide the latter.

Annals of the Absurd

In case anyone was keeping score, it takes a newly diagnosed diabetes patient three months to see an endocrinologist.  

Forcefield

In 2004, I was at the protest of the Republican National Convention in New York City, and someone wielded a sign, made famous by Jesse Jackson that I will try to recreate in blog text.

We Need A No-Carb Diet

Cheney

Ashcroft

Rumpsfeld

Bush

Oh, how much better that diet is...

It's a tough transition, going from eating whatever one wants to being confined to a certain level of certain foods.  For the past 6 years, I've watched what I ate in order to lose weight, which I did successfully after being a pudgy little kid.  It was never low calories or low carbs - it was low fat.  I now have a diet which allows all the fat I need, but limits carbs.

Carbs are in everything.  Milk, juice, pasta, rice, BBQ sauce, chocolate, etc.  Everything you can imagine with the exception of *most* vegetables.  

Without the normal level of carbs, I've been feeling empty.  In the movie ANTZ (yes, another Woody Allen reference, albeit a bad movie) Woody Allens' character stumbles upon Insectopia, where there is all the food he could want.  It is a picnic.  He goes up to a gaping sandwich, goes to take a bite, and is blocked by 'some sort of forcefield'.  It is saran wrap.  As I stare longingly at my pantry, my hand trembling from the shock to my system, it's as if there's a forcefield between me and the breads, the pastas, and my beloved Chococats.  

Food is difficult.  It's one of my greatest joys in life (not being a glutton, but eating good food) and now it's rationed.  

But on the bright side, the radish industry is going to boom with my diagnosis, and I can only imagine what will happen to Big Green Bean.

I need to find a diabetic cow.

Company

I'm beginning to realize that since this is not a live blog (who do you think I am, Politico?  CNN?)  much of this will be out of sequence, or downright stream of consciousness.  I'm not sure if the term 'poetic license' applies here (much the same way it didn't to my idiot high school AP English teacher who claimed it after writing the phrase 'The Church runned the school') but for this, being partly therapeutic for me, I'm going to go ahead and do what I want.  Have a problem?  Write a counterblog.  Or post a comment.  

A few alterations to the way my four day hospital stay progressed could have had drastic effects.  Besides thus-far not needing to hire any malpractice lawyer, something that kept me sane, and even made me enjoy myself, was the presence of friends.  I can't really describe how great it was to see any of the number of people walking towards my room.  The knowledge that they took the time to come and sit in a dreadful place was euphoric for me.  I have no words for the gratitude I feel, so I won't try to find them.

414A

Imagine, for a moment, that you are lying in a yellowed room partitioned with beige curtains.  There are no windows.  There is no clock.  Time begins to slip away from you.  

In the ER, there is a non-medical waiting room and a medical waiting room.  But at 3AM, I was wheeled, semi-conscious, to a room on the medicine floor.  

I was still grappling with the diagnosis when I woke up to a tray on the table beside me.  Breakfast.  Now, I knew very little about the disease I'd been told I had, but I was pretty sure, from pop culture references and general common sense, that french toast, maple syrup, a processed fruit cup, and cranberry juice was probably not the best diet for me.  

There were other mini-fiascos.  Mentioning no names, machines to test blood sugar were called insulin injectors, general information about diabetes that would have been undone on Wikipedia in a manner of minutes was disseminated, and there was a general feeling that nobody was really talking to me.  It took an overheard conversation in the hall to confirm the basic idea that this was Type 1.

I shared a room with another male patient.  I know not of his problems, but they were severe enough to keep him in bed, mainly immobile, and unable to eat.  He had what appeared to be a fiance, who came often.  My interactions with him were as follows: Introduction, and my picking up a fallen BlackBerry that came under the dividing curtain.  I wasn't looking for a Bucket List type relationship with my hospital roommate, and I left without one.

Throughout the days in the hospital, the doctors seemed stumped as to how much insulin I'd need.  I seemed to get different amounts, different boosters, and still, a chart of my blood sugar would look like a roller coaster (I speak, of course, of an old-timey one, like the one Woody Allen lived under in Annie Hall, not a Six Flags barrel-roll.)  

What hath carbs wrought?

Is there any word uglier than "blog"?  Perhaps "moist".  I'd rather be a blogger than a moister.

It's really great to meditate on the way one can get diabetes, if get is even the right word.  One can live a life of debauchery, eating deliciously unhealthy foods, smoke, drink, and not exercise.  Or, a slip in a genotype that skipped a generation and suddenly you're a slave to the water fountain.

But I'm not bitter.

It started about three weeks ago with just that: thirst.  I kept having flashbacks to the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean" (the first, and only, enjoyable one) when a pre-octopus evil captain kept speaking about an unquenchable thirst (inquenchable?  reminds me of the John Adams v. Thomas Jefferson argument of unalienable v. inalienable.).  

It peaked one Saturday night after a night of good food, good drink, and good friends in Manhattan.  I had to get out of the train at 53rd and 3rd and find a drink and a bathroom, no easy feat at 3A.M.   When I got back to Queens, I got in a cab, and went to tell an older Russian woman cabbie where I lived.  I couldn't form words - it very literally felt like my tongue was made of cotton.  I finally got home, and put my mouth under the faucet.

It was the next day that the possibility of having diabetes was put into my mind.  Two conversations being had independently made the diagnosis.  It was hard to balance my perpetual cynicism with my chronic hypochondria.  The middle ground was to diagnose myself with some psychological disorder that tangentially had all the symptoms of diabetes.

I rode my bike to my school's student health center.  A monotonous K Street building surrounded by normative northwest District fixtures - Starbucks, lobbying firms, and frail trees in neat little boxes - I waited until the doctor would see me.  As entertaining as it may have been to hear a one sided conversation of a woman making an appointment about a recently contracted STD, and the necessary steps she would have to take before coming in to be check, my mind was racing.  

I could describe the visit, but it was as plain as the facade of the building.  The doctor never used the word diabetes, interestingly enough.  She seemed to have the same problem my neighbor to the west at 1600 Pennsylvania did: her facial expressions didn't seem to match what she was saying.

The next eighteen hours would be spent in the ER.  It all seemed to blur together.  So here are the highlights:

*Blood Gas tests are the worst things in the world, second only, perhaps, to taking medical tape off that's been on your arm for two days.

*Being in the ER, contrary to numerous television shows, has all the excitement of a Brookings Institute Report.

*I was given magnesium.  A minute in, with no nurse, I became incredibly hot and flushed.  When the nurse answered my call, she said she'd not told me because, typically, it only happens to women.  Great - emasculate someone who is already in a gown and flip flops.

*Someone who works at Cosi who, presumably, is around both the food we eat and sharp objects, is HIV positive.

I'll leave it at that for the ER and the post.  Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion.

Scratch that.  The conclusion of diabetes, I assume, is death.

This could fail

Most blogs are read simply by the blogger and their mother.  I fear that one of two things will happen with this.  Either that prophecy will be true, or I'll just quit.   To be perfectly honest, the name of the blog was why I rushed to blogspot, not out of any sense to share my story (icanhazcheezburger.com).  But lets see how this goes.