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April 2009

Trying to Laugh With a Frozen Face

Tonight I went to a solo performance show, featuring four performers who are showcasing their work after a solo performance class that I used to take. It’s great to go to these shows, to check out the new and amazing talent as well as to see old friends and “alums” from the class. It’s truly a fantastic community and one that I dearly love and appreciate.

The show tonight featured two old friends of mine and two “newbies” whom I knew nothing about. I was really anticipating the new stuff.  The third performer opened her act by coming out on stage and whispering, “Shhh……it’s 3 in the morning in a small town in the Midwest. There’s a 13 year old girl in there sleeping, or…?” She morphs into a mother, bending over her daughter’s bed, yelling somewhat hysterically, “HONEY! ARE YOU HAVING A REACTION?!?”

I froze for a moment. Reaction. Reaction. OMG. This was going to be a piece about… could it be? Diabetes. Oh god.

Yes indeedy. It was a piece about diabetes. The actor stepped to the front of the stage to narrate the goings-on. “Yes. I have had diabetes since I was eight years old. I have TYPE ONE diabetes, not to be confused with TYPE TWO diabetes, of which there is an EPIDEMIC these days, because people are running around eating too many Big Macs.”  And then she went on to tell her diabetes life story, getting lots of laughs along the way.

This is when I officially left my body, my back pressed as far back into the seat it would go, and I think I probably missed the next five minutes of the show. I felt attacked, embarrassed, mortified, defensive, shocked.

I’ve only been part of the “diabetes community” for, um… five days now? And in my surfing around on various forums and websites I’ve detected a distinct feeling of animosity and hostility from Diabetes type-1 people toward Diabetes type-2 people. The sentiment seems to be something like, people with type-1 Diabetes are innocent children who did nothing to deserve this terrible fate, while type-2 Diabetes people are obese, sendentary pigs who BROUGHT THIS ON THEMSELVES.

Look. I know that being overweight is a risk factor for developing diabetes. I was overweight for many years (and still am, to a lesser degree). But jeez.

There is so much ignorance and misinformation out there. So of course D1 people feel outraged and indignant when people who Don’t Know Any Better say things like, “you probably ate too many candy bars!” But then to take it out on other people who have diabetes?

Suddenly, I feel tired. And sad.

8

3 Day Limbo

Now I know I have diabetes. But I’m not really doing anything differently until I have my first diabetes education class on Tuesday. I know that I’m going to have to start Testing on that day. (they told me to bring my little blood-testing machine) I know I will survive all that, but sometimes I get overwhelmed with thoughts of having to prick myself and draw my blood X number of times per day, like… for the rest of my life? I’m experiencing these last three days of somewhat ignorant somewhat bliss, my fingertips intact for a little while longer. I have to admit I am feeling some grief over this. But in the midst of this, I’ve also had some incredibly happy times.

The Springsteen concert on Wednesday was awesome. And last night my friend E and I went to the newly-refurbished incredibly beautiful Fox Theater to see… The Moody Blues!!! To say that it was a TRIP is an understatement. I don’t even think I could describe it in a way that would give it justice.  Crazy psychedelic graphics, and hundreds of grey-haired hippies, pulsing flowers and floating clouds, and just… groovy, man. E and I had our mouths gaping in complete disbelief. Also shock that we KNEW 85% of the songs BY HEART even though we had not heard them in probably over 30 years. It was just… trippy.  And way more fun than I’d had in a long time. It felt good to laugh and dance and be goofy.

My Couch-to-5k training continues to go well. This morning I wanted to get in a run/walk before WW and my friend M wasn’t available so I went with my trusty iPod and ended up definitely running more than my 2nd-week workout dictates. I’ve discovered that my PERFECT jogging tempo is to Cat Stevens’ “Wild World.” (la la la la la la) I really felt like I could have kept going a long time. But I had to go to my meeting and…

I lost another pound. That was a good thing. One more to TWENTY! I don’t think I’ve ever lost 20 consecutive pounds before. (just the same ones, over and over) I’ve weighed less than I do now, but after starting out at a lower weight, so I never lost that much.

In spite of the weight loss, I have to say that WW really turned me off today. The leader was talking about food substitutions, you know, to deal with still be able to eat our “old favorites.” And she said her favorite, most awesome thing was a Diet Soda Cake. I was like… wha?????? She said it basically consists of taking a box of cake mix (ie box of chemicals) and switching out the egg and oil for… a can of diet soda!!  So it’s basically nothing but a chemical cake. I’m thinking, could ANYthing be more gross than that??

And it just kind of underscored my feeling about WW really just hawking prepared foods filled with crap. The idea made me wince: a box cake made with DIET SODA? Okay, I’ll stop ranting now. But ugh.

Yesterday I went to visit another friend who is one of the most fashion-savvy people I know. She is my personal “What Not To Wear” consultant. Anyway, she was purging her closets and gave me 2 bags of unbelievably COOL clothes! Including a very adorable Little Black Dress and a cute grey skirt. Now, I have not worn either a dress OR a skirt in probably 15 years, so to try these things on and not be repulsed beyond belief was a milestone that made me incredibly happy. And really nice jeans! And a plaid jacket with A BELT!! It’s probably been 15 years since I’ve worn a belt of any kind, other than a bathrobe one. 🙂

So, I’m carrying on. I’m hanging in there. Part of me is trying on the idea that maybe this diabetes thing could be some bizarre Gift-In-Disguise.  It’s not going to let me off the hook.  Which is what I really need.

6

Medicine by Dr. Bruce, and Re-Adjusting

Well, the Day of Wallowing is over. So now begins the week/month/year/lifetime of trying to figure this all out. I want to thank all of you lovely wonderful people who commented, emailed and DMed me yesterday after my distressing/distraught post. I can’t tell you HOW MUCH those comments buoyed me up. Truly. I am grateful, so grateful, to every single one of you. Your comments made me well up with warmth and a sense of being truly taken care of. So THANK  YOU.

Last night it helped immmmmmmmensely to have tickets to see Bruce Springsteen. At first I really didn’t even want to go, I just wanted to – you know – WALLOW – but it seemed stupid to pass up such an event, and I am so glad I didn’t. It was great medicine.  When he started out with “Badlands” –

it aint no sin to be glad you’re alive

it gave me a big lump in my throat. And then he’d yell periodically into the audience, “Is anybody aliiiiiiiiiiive out there?” and I had to jump up and down and yell affirmation to that. I’m still alive! Hell yeah!

I got up in the morning and did my 2nd session, 2nd week of Couch-to-5k with my buddy Mary. It was a lot better and easier than earlier in the week, which was great. So it felt good to start the day with some affirming exercise.

Then later in the day I got down to some of the business of dealing with this diabetes thing.

  • I signed up for a bunch of diabetes-related blogs, forums and Tweets.
  • I registered for Diabetes Education classes, which begin next Tuesday. They said to bring my glucometer (blood testing machine). I have to say, this put a twinge of fear/resistance/oh noooooo into my heart. I had a moment of the heaviness of FOREVER. But then I breathed it through. I really do think this is going to have to be one day at a time.
  • I got an appointment to see the opthamologist this afternoon. I had just read this sobering account of Mary Tyler Moore’s (type 1, not 2) diabetes, and how her vision is really starting to go. This made me so sad and scared, so I was glad they had an immediate appointment.
  • The good news: I don’t have any “vascular complications” in my eyes.
  • The bad news: (watch out, I’m about to rant) The eye doctor asked for my family medical history. I said I didn’t know, because I was adopted. She said, “You’re adopted?? Oh, that’s so cuuuuuute!”  I almost launched into an Arlo Guthrie yell (a la “Alice’s Restaurant”) “Kill! Kiiill! Kiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllll!” but I refrained.
  • Rant #2: as if it was’t bad enough being told that being adopted is “cute” it reminded me ONCE AGAIN of the absolute wrongness,  indignity and danger of not having access or knowledge of my family medical history. Now maybe I don’t have a genetic family history of diabetes. But maybe I do. And if I do, and I had, say, KNOWN about it, five years ago, maybe I could have diagnosed/dealt with this even earlier. Who knows. But it just SUCKS so much to have no idea about these things. It is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG in every way possible.
  • I filled my prescription for Glucophage/Metformin and took first dose at dinner tonight.

So, I did everything on my endocroinologist’s check-off list. I bought a book about diabetes.

I’m a little thrown off in terms of the diet thing right now. I think my primary concern is figuring out what to do to keep my blood sugars “under tight control” which is what the opthamologist said I must do if I do not want to go blind. (OK! OK! I will!!!) Hopefully what is good for the blood sugars will also be good for the weight and it will all sort of work itself out. But right now I don’t have it in my to count the points or calories. I’m just sort of hanging on.

6

D-Day

Diagnosis Day. Diabetes Day. Depressed, discouraged, disgrunted, disappointed day. That’s been today for me.

I know I had some inner inkling from the awfulness of the glucose test on Monday, but part of me was also feeling so confident and happy and proud of myself for losing weight and exercising and just DOING GOOD since my last visit to the endocrinologist in February.

She came right in to the room and said, “Well, I’m sorry to say it, but you definitely have diabetes.”

Clunk.

Umm, what happened to “pre-?” I think that was probably wishful thinking back then. But I did have a few months to get used to the idea and during that time I did get significantly healthier in terms of my weight, blood pressure, cholesterol etc.

I was so shocked (well, part of me was, and part of me was not). And disappointed. And like, “Noooooooooooo!!!!!!! After all of my hard work!!”  Isn’t it supposed to go, that you get rewarded for doing well? This is not the result I was wanting or expecting.

I sort of plaintively, hopefully asked, “Can I make it go away?” and she shook her head sadly and said, “I’m afraid not.”

But most probably I had it all along but it wasn’t until the finality of the glucose test that it was objectively defined.

In January my fasting blood glucose (BG) was 123. (official diagnosis = 125 or over) So that’s where I got the idea it was “pre-.”  In February I had it down to 110 and I was feeling pretty damn good. So now it’s April. My fasting BG was a spectacular 101 (yay!) but that’s where the good news ended. My “postprandial” BG was 272 after 1 hour post-glucose.  (normal is 90-150) It was only a little bit lower after 2 hours. Which explains exactly WHY I felt so deathly awful. It was for real.

I know that millions of people live happily (?) and healthily with diabetes. I know it’s a lot better than other diagnoses one could get. But still, I didn’t want this. I tried so hard to prevent it from happening.

I didn’t much like it when she tested my feet and gave me a prescription to go to an opthamologist and called it a “progressive disease.” I hate the sound of that.

I started crying in the doctor’s office, and then sat in the car and cried for an hour (see my tearful Twitters) and then drove around mournfully for the rest of the morning. I cancelled my visit with my friend because I was just too glum to be able to cheer someone ELSE up. Now I’m going to take a nap. I do feel like I will eventually recover from this, hopefully as early as tomorrow, but today I feel sad and shitty and like rolling up in a little ball and whimpering “It’s not fair.” Which it isn’t, but nothing really is.

I hereby proclaim today Official Day of Wallowing, and tomorrow I get up and carry on.

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