36 years ago today, was a Monday, at the age of 8, I woke up from a coma, weighing only 38 pounds.
For nearly 2 weeks before, my mom had been calling the doctor's office,
telling them how sick I was and how much weight I was losing. I was
vomiting several times a day, so they told her that I had a virus and
that they couldn't do anything, it had to run it's course. They told her
to just give me ginger ale and see if I could keep it down. I remember
HAVING to go to school because my mom was in cosmetology school at time,
because she desperately needed a job to support us. At the time, my
grand~parents were helping her out. So I HAD to go to school. I just
wanted to die feeling that sick!!! Every time I ate, I vomited. I mean
EVERY TIME!!!!!! I was tired, weak, sore, my throat hurt from the
vomiting. I had no muscle or fat left on my body, and my mom had no
medical insurance for us.
That Friday, they told mom to call
the office on Tuesday, if I was still sick so that they could try to
squeeze me in. (Monday they were off for Columbus Day.) Well, Monday, my
grandparents stopped by and my grandpop begged my mom to let him take
her and I to the ER. He told her that grandmom would stay home with
Noah. So off to the hospital they went. At one point, someone came out
of the ER and told my mom that they had no idea what was wrong and that I
may have a rare form of meningitis. They said that I may not pull
through. So mom prayed. She thanked God for allowing her to have me and
thanked him for the 8 years that we had together. She was all alone.
Grandpop had to go back to our house to get grandmom and Noah and take
them to their house.
Right around that time, I went into
cardiac arrest. My heart stopped. I was dead. YOLO does not apply to me.
So there were two doctors taking care of my "code". One doing the
defibrillator and one bagging me. The one bagging me smelled the
ketoacidosis on my breath. It's a very sweet smelling apple-ish kind of
smell. He asked if anyone had run a glucose level and they said that
they hadn't as they were prepping me for a spinal tap. So he asked them
to add a blood glucose level to the blood they had already drawn. After I
was resuscitated and alive again, they got the results back. My sugar
was 985. They generally like to see the sugars run between 80-120. So
yeah, mine was kinda high.
So many things have happened over
the years in the care for diabetics. Unfortunately the ONLY upgrade that
I have available to me since my diagnosis is a glucometer. It sucks
having no insurance. It sucks having your young children finding you in a
coma and having to call 911. It sucks having people that know nothing
about diabetes ask you if you should be eating something. It sucks
having to do math calculations every time you want to eat, exercise,
drink, be intimate, or just take a nap. For example, oh....I took both
insulins at blah time, so I'll peak at blah time, so as long as I eat at
blah time, I'll be able to take a nap because this disease exhausts me.
Oh, but if I do lay down, did I eat enough so that I won't drop and not
wake up? Should I eat extra, just in case, but if I eat extra, I may
wake up high and feel like crap. Yeah...it's like that every minute of
every day in my brain, so if you're babbling on about some
non-significant BS about how you couldn't find the perfect bag to match
your shoes, or you're complaining that life sucks so bad, think about
living like this every day of your life. And don't think that I'm not
fascinated by your story about how you couldn't find a pair of matching
shoelaces, but I may be processing whether or not I'll pass out because
of my insulin schedule versus my hormone schedule this month.
It's a daily struggle. I know I try to act all cool about it, but as I'm
aging, it is taking it's affect on me. This is a tough time of year for
me, my body always goes into a funk. And right now, I've got a fridge
that has water seeping out of it because a leak/blockage got created
when our water was shut down for maintenance the other day. I have no
one to help me pull out the fridge, clean everything up, and try to fix
the problem, but oh, I've got people texting me their issues and how I
have to fix everything for them.
So before you look down your
nose at me or judge me for being weird, maybe you can think, oh, that's
just her way of handling the crap the life has thrown at her. That's her
outlet....oh.....and I'll let that weirdness slide as I've never been a
T1D for 36 years, so I have no idea what happens in a diabetic's brain.
So diabetes can suck it!!! Here's another year that diabetes didn't get to kill me. — feeling determined.
For nearly 2 weeks before, my mom had been calling the doctor's office, telling them how sick I was and how much weight I was losing. I was vomiting several times a day, so they told her that I had a virus and that they couldn't do anything, it had to run it's course. They told her to just give me ginger ale and see if I could keep it down. I remember HAVING to go to school because my mom was in cosmetology school at time, because she desperately needed a job to support us. At the time, my grand~parents were helping her out. So I HAD to go to school. I just wanted to die feeling that sick!!! Every time I ate, I vomited. I mean EVERY TIME!!!!!! I was tired, weak, sore, my throat hurt from the vomiting. I had no muscle or fat left on my body, and my mom had no medical insurance for us.
That Friday, they told mom to call the office on Tuesday, if I was still sick so that they could try to squeeze me in. (Monday they were off for Columbus Day.) Well, Monday, my grandparents stopped by and my grandpop begged my mom to let him take her and I to the ER. He told her that grandmom would stay home with Noah. So off to the hospital they went. At one point, someone came out of the ER and told my mom that they had no idea what was wrong and that I may have a rare form of meningitis. They said that I may not pull through. So mom prayed. She thanked God for allowing her to have me and thanked him for the 8 years that we had together. She was all alone. Grandpop had to go back to our house to get grandmom and Noah and take them to their house.
Right around that time, I went into cardiac arrest. My heart stopped. I was dead. YOLO does not apply to me. So there were two doctors taking care of my "code". One doing the defibrillator and one bagging me. The one bagging me smelled the ketoacidosis on my breath. It's a very sweet smelling apple-ish kind of smell. He asked if anyone had run a glucose level and they said that they hadn't as they were prepping me for a spinal tap. So he asked them to add a blood glucose level to the blood they had already drawn. After I was resuscitated and alive again, they got the results back. My sugar was 985. They generally like to see the sugars run between 80-120. So yeah, mine was kinda high.
So many things have happened over the years in the care for diabetics. Unfortunately the ONLY upgrade that I have available to me since my diagnosis is a glucometer. It sucks having no insurance. It sucks having your young children finding you in a coma and having to call 911. It sucks having people that know nothing about diabetes ask you if you should be eating something. It sucks having to do math calculations every time you want to eat, exercise, drink, be intimate, or just take a nap. For example, oh....I took both insulins at blah time, so I'll peak at blah time, so as long as I eat at blah time, I'll be able to take a nap because this disease exhausts me. Oh, but if I do lay down, did I eat enough so that I won't drop and not wake up? Should I eat extra, just in case, but if I eat extra, I may wake up high and feel like crap. Yeah...it's like that every minute of every day in my brain, so if you're babbling on about some non-significant BS about how you couldn't find the perfect bag to match your shoes, or you're complaining that life sucks so bad, think about living like this every day of your life. And don't think that I'm not fascinated by your story about how you couldn't find a pair of matching shoelaces, but I may be processing whether or not I'll pass out because of my insulin schedule versus my hormone schedule this month.
It's a daily struggle. I know I try to act all cool about it, but as I'm aging, it is taking it's affect on me. This is a tough time of year for me, my body always goes into a funk. And right now, I've got a fridge that has water seeping out of it because a leak/blockage got created when our water was shut down for maintenance the other day. I have no one to help me pull out the fridge, clean everything up, and try to fix the problem, but oh, I've got people texting me their issues and how I have to fix everything for them.
So before you look down your nose at me or judge me for being weird, maybe you can think, oh, that's just her way of handling the crap the life has thrown at her. That's her outlet....oh.....and I'll let that weirdness slide as I've never been a T1D for 36 years, so I have no idea what happens in a diabetic's brain.
So diabetes can suck it!!! Here's another year that diabetes didn't get to kill me. — feeling determined.
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