But the drug I'm addicted to saves my life every day, so I think I've got a pretty good reason. See, when I was 15, my pancreas decided to take a permanent vacation, go on strike, I don't know what, but my body pretty much decided to quit producing insulin. So now I act as my own pancreas. I bet all of you people out there who have a normally functioning pancreas don't even think twice about what that particular organ does, or maybe you didn't even know you had one. Or what it does. Short version? Your pancreas produces insulin which is what allows the carbs from the food you eat to enter your blood cells so your body can use that as energy. Without insulin, those carbs (sugar) just kind of float around in your blood stream and since your body can't get its energy from food, it starts to steal from other places in the body, like fat and muscle cells.
But I'm not writing this to bore you with a science lesson. The fact is you can't look at someone and just know that they're an insulin dependent diabetic. It's not written on my forehead. I can live a pretty normal life. The thing is, I do, mostly. But there are the days where diabetes is just a jerk and it invades every moment. I can't go anywhere without making sure I have snacks on hand in case of a low blood sugar. What happens if I run out of snacks and that low is just stubborn and persistent and I can't get back in a normal range? I have to make sure I have the insulin that I need to cover the food that I eat, and I need to be able to do the math to figure out my dosages per meal. Yes, I can eat anything you can eat, but I have to plan for it. Five different types of desserts at a potluck? Sure I could cover that, but it wouldn't be smart. Pick one. Besides, who wants to do all that math?
There are days like yesterday when after lunch I couldn't keep my blood sugars much above 60 for any period of time, no matter how much I ate. Or bedtime last night when it was at least an hour and a half before I felt safe going to sleep because, again, my levels were low. Why does it matter? Because there's no guarantee that I would have woken up this morning. I'm not trying to sound dramatic; it's just a fact of being diabetic. Generally, I feel my lows when I'm sleeping and will usually wake up. I treat, test again, go back to bed. No big deal. But there's no guarantee. I finally got my levels to a decent level, went to bed, and then less than two hours later at 3 a.m., went low again. A juice box, a few glucose tablets, and some fruit snacks later I was good to go back to bed. But that was about a 45 minute process. And as a result, I am completely exhausted today.
To be frank, diabetes can suck. I could ignore it, which I have done, but long-term that's just a really terrible idea. So now I'm choosing to attempt to manage it better than I have the past several years because I don't like the idea of facing liver or kidney failure, heart disease, blindness, or amputation down the road. I'm so thankful for the Diabetic Online Community which I have discovered within the last few months; it's such a great reminder that I'm not alone in this, that people understand what it's like to want to just shove your face during a low blood sugar. Or the tiredness that comes with a high.
This post isn't to complain about being diabetic, but it is written with the intention to hopefully educate people who don't know what it's like. This is my life and I'm going to use every opportunity I have to educate and advocate so that one day we might have a cure!
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