Nope, I’m not going to give you the typical symptoms like thirst, peeing a lot and fatigue. I’m going to give you 10 ways you know you have diabetes–my 10 things I find myself needing to consider because I have diabetes.

My list emerged after I saw a TV segment about how America is in love with lists.

Magazines and books are chock-a-block with them, “10 ways to conquer your phobias,” “The 7 best cities to live in,” “153 things to tell your lover in bed and out,” etc.

The reason lists are so popular is that they make magazines and books fly off the shelves appealing to our “quick-fix” in simple-steps mentality.

I will admit after seeing that report on TV, well actually during that report, I battered my brain to come up with a catchy list title for the diabetes myths book I’m working on, but alas I am still title-less. Nevertheless it did prompt my list of 10 ways I know I have diabetes.

1. I find myself screaming, “How many carbs are in that pancake? You don’t know?!” My day is filled with stuff ordinary people never think about.

2. Shit, shit, shit! (and really I don’t usually curse) I wasn’t going to walk this morning because they predicted rain and now the sun is blazing! Should I? Shouldn’t I? Do I risk going low, do I have to eat when I don’t want to? Shit, shit, shit! How many other people beat themselves up for wanting to take a walk?

3. I am afflicted with a major form of terrorist torture–sleep deprivation. “I’m so tired, can’t I just lie here and fall asleep?” Nope, gotta get up, go into the kitchen and stick a needle in my finger to test my blood sugar. Sunday morning replay: “I’m so sleepy, can’t I just lie here just a little longer. It’s only 7:30 for goodness sake.” Nope, gotta get up and stick 3 needles in myself!

4. “Hmmm… that’s a cute designer diabetes accessory, it would carry all my syringes, vials, test strips.” God, did I really say that? Do I really have to consider that? I want out of this club, never mind the cute accessories.

5. Wiping blood off my counter, my cupboard, my shirt, yuck my food, with absolutely no abhorrence, hesitation or dismay.

6. “When’s dinner? When? You sure? Really? You’re sure now?”

7.  Glucerna just made a cereal for diabetics — a product just for us, hmmm…I noticed there an “us.” I don’t really want to have to notice there’s an “us.” Yet now we’re worthy of marketer’s attention, right up there with aspirational Lexus drivers, Tide-detergent soccer moms, Sex and the City Garnier hair-coloring singles, and boy, “those special people with diabetes.”

8. How often do I really have to go to my endo? I just found a prescription to get blood tests taken July 30, 2007, oops.

9. Sneaking lunch into a noon movie, no sweat, but how will I be able to see my syringe to dose in the dark?

10. Geez, I just tested my blood sugar and I just forgot the number! Alzheimers? Dementia? Who cares, now I have to do it again!!! Geez 😦

In the back of my head, always, is a constant calculator of all the things I’m tabbing, analyzing and noticing just to take care of my diabetes, it feels like a second job. It’s actually a marvel and a huge disappointment that no one else seems to notice all the noticing I have to do. Except, unfortunately, you.

I’ve been further reflecting on this micro-managing mania of mine these past few weeks (see post below) and realize what an awesomely complex thing it is we do every day managing our blood sugar — and what an amazing thing it is we assume we should be able to do what our pancreas does automatically by taking pills or injections of insulin, watching what we eat and trying to use exercise as a sugar burner.

If you’ve had diabetes a while, you know we can’t make any of these decisions with the clear confidence we’re always accurate. We don’t know what our body is doing at any given moment: secreting stress hormones like cortisol and adrenalin which raises blood sugar because we’re frightened or stressed —

I imagine many times my blood sugar skyrockets from 105 to 310 merely because I’m frozen behind this computer trying to come up with my next witty line.

Then there’s getting sick but you don’t know it yet, as in wow, where’d that cold come from upon sneezing. Again, your blood sugar’s rising unbenkownst to you.

There’s the female once a month hormonal surge which many women suffer: more insulin resistant a few days ahead of your period, more insulin sensitive a few days in. Yet with increasingly busy lives lots of women don’t make the connection each month.

How about teens going through puberty with a host of uncontrollable growth hormones?

How about seniors who’ve been told they have to change their whole lives or die early, with miserable suffering along the way?

Then there’s the food thing, the label says this packaged corn muffin has 12 grams of carbohydrates, so you shoot up “appropriately” and two hours later your blood sugar is over 300, well mine was! 12 grams? I don’t think so: a liberal use of the word carbohydrate on some regulator’s part?

Or how about the myriad of carb calculations in King’s Calorie handbook that says 1/2 cup of cole slaw has 18 grams of carb. So I shot up for it and 45 minutes later was peeling myself off the floor. And merely saying to myself, “Oh, well, another day.”

There are so many factors, external and internal, that affect our blood sugar that I marvel at our innocent hubris to think we can really regulate our blood sugar with accuracy, for a lifetime no less.

I’m a 36 year veteran and I think what people find hardest to understand is each day I have to do the calculating and testing all over again, and again, and again…

I hear you, this is the part where you say, “Get a continuous glucose monitor already!” But it’s kind of like how I feel about the pump; I don’t want an attachment on my body, beside CGMs aren’t perfected yet, you still have to test with your meter so what’s the point? And with 7 or so checks a day I pretty well know how I’m tracking, after the fact. 7 or so checks, that’s rolls off my fingers, and lips, as though it’s just everyday business.

There are no answers here, just wide-eyed musing that 14 milliion patients in the U.S. have been duped — acting like we can really control our blood sugar.

I mean really, it’s a whopping assumption with our current practices; seems we are both foolish and heroic at the same time.

Perhaps worse, doctors and diabetes nurses and educators are under the same delusion — that we can do this with any consistent accuracy and not fall into despair from time to time befitting the everyday acts we perform.

I think we all need a good, fresh dose of reality: Do your best, appreciate that we have some tools, recognize it’s still a barbaric and hopeful process — and hang on to that hope because as things speed along we may actually crack this nut, or make managing diabetes a more automatic, less patient-dependent, emotionally-laden, burdensome process.

For all my disgruntledness, I am excited to see what will be in the diabetes management toolbox five years from now, ten years from now.

Meanwhile, I’ve decided to cut myself some slack, no, lots of slack, not about the discipline I bring to my management, but my expectation of how often I shouldget it right, lather myself with forgiveness when I don’t, and recognize in this crazy process the courage, valor, strength and optimism I bring to it all — and should be congratulated for living this way each and every day.

I think you should congratulate yourself as well for the mere fact that you’ve chosen to take it on day after day after day.

I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately but for the last several days I seem to be testing my blood sugar almost hourly, micro-managing with a never before gusto.

If I eat what I think merits a half unit of insulin I’ll test and shoot up, even if dinner is only an hour away.

My post-prandial checks have shrunk from two hours to one, I can’t get enough information about how everything impacts my blood sugar.

I’m almost obsessive; if I were a gambler, I’d have already blown a million on black jack, if I were a drug addict I’d be stuffing packets into carved out Statues of Liberty for export, if I were a sex addict I’d be too tired to think and if I had OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, yes, if, I’d still be washing my hands and never have them free to write another blog.

What’s happening? I suspect I like knowing where I am and feeling I can keep my blood sugar within target range almost all the time.

I think it all began two weeks ago when I noticed my blood sugar rising dramatically in the morning if I hadn’t had any wine the night before.

I joke that I use wine as part of my blood sugar management for it lowers my blood sugar as any pure alcohol will, except of course the obvious carb-loaded culprits like beer, mixed drinks (by virtue of the mixer) and liquores.

Not only does a glass or two of wine with dinner inhibit my blood sugar from rising, it lowers my blood sugar (bs) overnight and sustains a lower blood glucose reading and rise the next morning that lasts from the time I awake around 7 AM to the time I might eat breakfast closer to 9 AM.

I have even worked out how to accommodate the overnight drop so I don’t wake at 3 AM with the shakes as my bs lowers; I make sure my glucose level is around 130 or 140 before retiring.

But, after giving up the vino for a week, just too busy and needing a clearer than usual head, I saw that the inhibition of my morning bs rise was also gone. My lovely blood sugar read of 75 upon waking was 130 an hour later and 180 two hours later without doing a bloody, single thing. So I began testing in mini increments of time to watch what was happening and began to divide my rapid acting breakfast dose in two, sometimes three injections.

Typically I now take one or one and a half units upon waking ( of my 3.5 unit breakfast dose) if I’m not going to be eating breakfast for an hour or so. This blunts my rise significantly and then I’ll take the other two-thirds of my dose shortly before my bowl of oatmeal.

I think in hindsight this bird’s eye view into what my sugar’s doing almost moment to moment has been mesmerizing and made me very aware of the benefits of micro management. So much so, I began blunting rises throughout the day with more small doses and I can’t seem to stop. Well, I guess until they lock me up. (So there’s no confusion I continue to take my long-acting Lantus upon waking as I always have.)

Yes, you pump people are going to tell me, “Get a pump!” and I do realize I am enacting what a friend once told me is “the poor man’s pump” only I’ve raised it to an art, must be the beggerman’s pump, not just multiple injections but multiple, multiple injections.

So, yes, I began to look adoringly at an ad I saw the other day for Animas pumps. They seem to have gotten behind One Touch’s mini meters that come in hot colors and added the same pink and green color pump to their signature line.

The pink is awfully appealing, so appealing I thought as I usually do, I’ll do it when it’s half the size….. Unfortunately the idea of 24/7 hook up to a machine still isn’t as appealing as its color.

So, I’m wondering now how long this micro-managing phase will last. Maybe it’s just a micro period in decades of diabetes doings. Surely it can’t last forever, there are meals to be cooked, a house to be cleaned, work to be done. Not to mention the multitude of little red injection dots showing up on my abdomen, thighs and rear.

Then again, if I notice I’m playing connect the dots with my injection pricks and come up with the face of our next President I’ll let you know.

What happens when you have a bad cold and sore throat, you’re going twice a week for physical therapy for ankle tendonopathy, your upstairs neighbor had a fire and water is leaking through your kitchen ceiling and the insurance guy has just said, “Better fix this quick or you’ll have a mold problem!”  and you’re worried your editor thinks you’re a ditz while you’re working so hard you feel like you’re running just to stay in place? I’ll tell you what happens, your blood sugar goes up for the umpteenth time.

Ah, but since these are a new grouping of potential causes than the usual, from what is my sugar rising? Which can I change to have it come down again? The cold will tell me in two weeks, the fire damage may take considerably longer. The book issue is an ongoing event till December 15. 

Or is my blood sugar up because of the cumulative effect of all this stress? Or, because due to all this stress I’ve fallen woefully far from my exacting eating regimen, (yes, my knife is edging more of that halvah off that wedge and the rings around my stomach seem to be multiplying), and we know the ankle has kept me off my power walking track for hmm…3 months now…

If I didn’t have such a blasted headache right now I’m sure I could clearly see the answer to my query. Or, maybe not. Day thirteen thousand, one hundred and forty with diabetes. Will this record ever end?

I haven’t mentioned it before but 5 weeks ago I hurt my ankle. Really hurt it. I either tore a tendon, tore a ligament or have a severe stress fracture. Although I’ve been to my podiatrist twice now, the diagnosis is still unclear. The X-ray showed no break and while the doc didn’t feel I needed an MRI, I figured if my insurance paid for it I did. I want to know we’re doing everything possible to get this fixed as quickly as possible (which already seems impossible after 5 weeks) because not walking is having several unpleasant effects on me. 

1) If I ever needed confirmation that I’m more insulin-sensitive when I exercise I have it. I’ve had to up my Lantus from 12.5 daily units to 14, and add an extra unit or two to most of my boluses. Granted, I use little insulin compared to many, but for me this change is no less significant or upsetting. My blood sugar’s been far less well controlled and predictable. The first week figuring out the new numbers was an exercise in frustration, irritation and downright pissed-off-edness. 

My one hour walk around the park I saw, plain and clear, had been performing blood-sugar control magic. Part of that magic was my numbers were better the whole day, and relatively similar day to day, so fairly easy to predict. There’s the second unpleasant effect – losing that predictability. Once you get your routine down, you know that having it wrecked feels like starting all over again from the day you were diagnosed. Yet I didn’t know just how unprepared I was for retooling again or how much it would bother me. By week two, maybe three, I had made the adjustments, but frankly still resented that I’d had to. Ah, thatpothole again I spoke of many, many posts ago. You’re zipping along and then wham, something unexpected causes you to go on tilt again. 

Unpleasant effect number 3) While I don’t think my one hour walk causes any weight loss, it does keep my weight in check. Now, in contrast, I feel the fat deposits around my stomach and thighs swelling. My resentment of my body’s failure is now on two fronts, foot and fat. Of course that’s on top of the underlying resentment – that I work hard at having good control and being immobile has made my diabetes uglier to manage. My resentment obviously peaked two night’s ago when I ate everything sweet in my house: gingerbread, chocolate, halvah, and washed it down with too much wine. That was me hitting the brick wall. Thank god that’s over, now I can move on. Of course after I tell you the last unpleasant effect – my mood shift.

4) I’ve basically been a very unpleasant person around my husband, whiny and petulant. Good soul that he is he hasn’t filed any papers, instead he just left for Holland. Of course, he works there so I don’t think the two are related. But being housebound and not being able to scoot from here to there, having lost an enormous sense of freedom and spontaneity, not being able to clear my head outside my immediate environs, see endless sky and be a part of life all around me, has deadened something in my spirit. We are social animals, after all, and my social life is largely apartment-bound.

So, what’s the message? I don’t really know. Am I just verbally vomiting? Maybe. Interesting though that I picked the day I’m actually feeling better to write this. Maybe this little patch of light creeping into my head today is offering such relief and hope that I dare to look at how poorly I’ve been feeling, and get back on track. 

You should know, while I preach looking for the good in things, which I absolutely believe is the way to go, I am like you a student and a work in progress. So putting my own, look for the good, words into practice I could say from this little experience: 1) I have more compassion for people who are struggling with their weight or are incapacitated in some way. I really, really do. 2) I am reminded (seems to be one of my life lessons) that I don’t have to overachieve to feel I’ve achieved something.  My ankle debacle came from taking my daily walk too aggressively – not missing a day – walking faster than usual – walking another hour most days as well – and then this overloaded ankle twisted in a pothole on a city street. All that effort I put into my walking to more aggressively keep my weight in check, all that speeding up has brought me to a standstill. That concern with weight comes from having been a heavy teen. My, my, such old programming still exists! That concern with overachieving is just more of the same entrenched, old programming. Seems my head needs to be re-booted. Well isn’t my current condition delivering the perfect symbolic message!? (See photo)

Then too, maybe I caused this because in the world of Louise Hay, spiritual teacher, my world is shifting rapidly and I am a little frightened of all the new things I’m taking on and all the new places I’m going. Did I slow myself down so that I could control it all, because I am an uber-controller? Not of others, just myself. “What I know for sure,” as Oprah would say, is when I’m faced with big, new things that feel overwhelming, my first impulse is to freeze and fear. But then what gets me through is to chunk it down into small steps. To take one small step at a time and create a small success. One step, one success builds me a road to the next step and the next success. Just writing that is soothing.  So I could say tallying my accumulated good the last one is, 3) I have been reminded that this small-step approach is what I need to do with all that’s in front of me. 

After all, the only race I’m in is the one I’ve created in my head. I guess my deeper wisdom knew that I needed to remember that. And like the tortoise and the hare, sure and steady wins the race. I just wish all this knowing had come to me in a dream, while slumbering peacefully in my space-age tempur-pedic bed, not in a pothole on 81st street. Then again, I could choose to see this whole affair as a symbolic, celebratory “kick-off” of all the many good things yet to come this year. 

My mother got a new refrigerator two months ago. It’s part of the renovation she’s doing on my parent’s new apartment. It’s probably the first time in 20 years she’s bought a major appliance. The refrigerator is made in New Zealand and she really liked it – until it stopped working.  To say the store where she purchased it was in no way customer-oriented was problem enough. An even bigger problem, however, was that my mother refused to send the refrigerator back, or make waves, because she didn’t want to be a problem.

Many patients exhibit this same kind of behavior. They think, well… the doctor told me to take these pills… I don’t see any difference in my blood sugar, but the doctor must know best. Would you be surprised to know that most physicians, outside of endocrinologists, get one day of diabetes training in medical school? My type 1 friend’s doctor told her to eat a bowl of cereal when she experienced hypoglycemia. Hey, when your blood sugar’s headed below 50 and you’re on your knees, a nice crunchy bowl of toasty oats is not the answer – glucotabs, Coke, honey and pure glucose like Sweet Tarts are! But she learned that from me, not her doctor.

Another friend couldn’t figure out why, when doing everything her doctor told her to, her blood sugars hovered around 200. Well, maybe it’s because he doesn’t think that’s anything to be concerned about. Has he heard the only thing that prevents or reduces the risk of diabetic complications is tight blood sugar control? 200 to me is like unfurling a blanket in the park and laying it with baguettes, potato chips, bagels, cheese cake and tootsie rolls. To be fair, the way health care is set up today, most patients get a scant 10-15 minutes with their doctor. How can you possibly get all the information you need in such time? How can your physician get to know what he or she needs to know to help you? But if they’re not asking and you don’t tell no one wins. And you definitely lose.

Then, so many patients are more concerned about being nice to their doctor than getting the care and treatment they need. They are afraid to rock the boat or doubt their own feelings in front of a white coat and stethoscope. They think they know nothing in the same room as someone who went to medical school. What I know for sure is that patients give their power away every day — and this makes it harder for their health care provider to help them. We patients are consumers of health care. Yet, we hardly think about it this way. If your doctor isn’t solving your problems, or even particularly concerned, you need to be.

When my mother’s refrigerator first arrived she had chest pains for three weeks. No, not anxiety. It was coming from opening the refrigerator’s tightly pressurized door. She told me pretty quickly, but took another two weeks to tell the store. They sent over a not-too-pleasant repairman who made my mother think it was all in her head. Until he said, “Best thing to do is tape some pennies between the unit and the door, some people say.”

That worked, but then the refrigerator’s temperature began vacillating between 38 to over 55. Everything perishable, hundreds of dollars worth of groceries, found the trash can their new home. I urged my mother to call the shop and return this lemon and write a letter of complaint demanding compensation for the tossed food. “But I don’t want them to think of me as a complainer. This is a small town and I don’t want a bad relationship,” my mother pleaded.

Two weeks later she called the store as it was becoming a weekly practice to toss her yogurt and milk in the garbage. The same repairman came. “Why are you always complaining?” he asked. My mother had tears in her eyes. As he turned to leave, he obviously thought of something, opened the fridge and mumbled, “Hmm…the sensors aren’t telling me this, but it looks like the fridge might be in constant defrost mode.” “So you mean maybe I’m not crazy?” my mother urged with such hope, and, hallelujah, finally anger.

So how’s your refrigerator, metaphorically — the housing that’s keeping your bodily functions working? If you don’t think your diabetes is well controlled — maybe it’s you or maybe you’re not getting the proper care. Chances are, deep down you know which is true. Certainly the dietician who gave my type 2 overweight, uncontrolled Aunt a daily diet of 300 grams of carbohydrates must be right, right?  She’s the pro, no? No. Only you are the pro on you.

Six weeks after the refrigerator entered my mother’s house she demanded the store take it back. They told her to call the manufacturer in New Zealand. She did. Two weeks later she called the store to ask if it had arrived. They said they didn’t know, “Call New Zealand!” She did. They said it had arrived in her local store a week earlier. She called the store. They said they didn’t see it. Finally my mother said, “I don’t think it’s my job to track down this refrigerator!” Three days later, for the very first time, the store-owner called my mother and said her new refrigerator would be delivered that week.

It was, it’s fine and the food is where it belongs, and we hope won’t see the trash again anytime soon. There’s an oft-quoted expression in Japan. The translation is, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” It’s not fun being a squeaky wheel but sometimes that’s what it takes.

If you’re not happy with your care and you feel you don’t have the right team to help you, look further. While it’s not always easy finding a good doctor, one who knows his or her stuff, treats you with respect and will help you manage your diabetes, if you don’t look, you’re sure not to find him or her. 

Don’t throw your perishable latter years away when you could be doing so much now to preserve them. You’re the customer, and while the customer may not always be right, when it comes to diabetes-care, I guess I’m just a little prejudiced that they usually are.

On my Home Page you’ll see that my intention, (probably by early next year), is for this site to become interactive. A place where you can share your diabetes story and read other’s stories. Several months ago while I was thick in the process of interviewing people with diabetes and their loved ones, I was struck by the healing power of someone talking uninterruptedly for an hour, reflecting on what living with diabetes is like. Many of those I interviewed were able to look back and see the times they’ve lived, better and worse, with diabetes. They were able to see the progress they’ve made “taming it” and/or incorporating it into their lives. Many were able to view what they’ve learned along the way both in their ‘diabetes-life’ and ‘ordinary-life’  and how their priorities have changed. How rare it is that any of us have an hour to talk to someone who both listens and wants to hear our story.

After my interviews many people asked me if what they told me would help others? They hoped it would. They told me talking had helped them. When I first heard this it surprised me. The tenth time I heard it, I was glad. The twentieth time, I knew it bespoke a universal principle; when you feel heard you can let go of what you’re carrying, at least part of it. 

As I started interviewing more people, my interviews shifted from face-to-face to over the phone. Sometimes I felt this arena was less intimate, sometimes more intimate because there were no visible judgments like facial responses. There’s an aspect of doing this work for me represented by the quote, “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” I do not see the result of my work most times in any tangible way. I do not form intimate relationships with the people I talk to. But from time to time, I do make a new acquaintance or friend, and I do know from an email that I make a difference.

This happened with one young woman I interviewed in April of this year. She is 19 years old, developed type 1 at ten, she’s in college and wants to be a psychologist and technology expert to help people better manage their diabetes. She reminded me of myself. Not because I had any intention to help people with their diabetes when I first got it, but she is now the age at which I got it, and her view of the world, her curiosity, maturity, sense of responsibility, and questioning mind, sounded like me at her age. 

Since interviewing ‘A’ five months ago we have maintained an email correspondence and I have become a sort of mentor. It pleases me to pass on my knowledge and experience, and while I can’t speed her journey, maybe I am making the waters just a little  smoother. I was tickled when earlier this month she wrote to me:

“It just came to me how much I’ve learned about myself and being a diabetic through your recommendation to read a couple of blogs. I’m up-to-date on technology, news, and all the current events with them. It’s added a whole new level of meaning and personal understanding to diabetes –nothing that I was able to get from seeing a physician or nurse 4x/year since my dx. It’s almost as if Drs only know the basics in the clinic and so much of the condition is a day-to-day battle that Drs can’t be there to help out or offer input on the little things; those of us who are “in the trenches” can offer more support and medical advice (or at least hunches) than any physician. We’re all walking calculators, scientists, and neurotic over-thinkers with a great sense of humor and positive view of life (because that’s what we need to survive). Reading these blogs has been the best treatment, therapy, and source of knowledge I’ve ever found. In fact, it makes me a bit more proud to be a diabetic and whole lot less lonely. Reading about their frustrations, successes, tips, and funny stories has brought new meaning to my life, truly invaluable. I hope I will be able to keep up with them when school starts. (I read three: Diabetes Mine, Six Until Me, and aiming for grace–and of course, yours). They are a source of great inspiration and comfort.  So thanks. 🙂

‘A’ and I had agreed when we talked back in April that we would meet during the summer since she lives less than two hours from Manhattan. This past Saturday she took a bus into town and I took the subway and, along with my husband, we met at Penn Station and spent the day touring around and getting to know each other. Over lunch I showed her the new lancing device I’m testing and she sampled it, agreeing how painless it is. We took the water ferry over to Fulton Ferry Landing under the Brooklyn Bridge. Then proceeded to walk back into town over the bridge since this is a must on my tour itinerary. While crossing the bridge I told her I thought my sugar was dropping. She offered her meter to test, but I said I’d wait another 10 minutes and keep tabs on how I felt. Shortly thereafter, on Chambers Street, we sat on the steps surrounded by majestic buildings (I realized I should have more lows and stop to enjoy the grandeur of Manhattan more) and I tested. Sure enough, 58. She and I both took some Sweet Tarts and rested for a few minutes. My husband later commented on the ease with which she and I shared meters and strips, but this is our special club after all. Revived, we scooted up to the Mac store in Soho, where she bumped into her best friend from high school who was in town from Michigan. We then meandered into Greenwich Village, and sampled some outrageous sorbet/ice cream – yes two diabetics who once on line said to each other, “I’ll just get a taste.” We are kindred spirits in the responsibility camp. Finally, my husband and I escorted her back to the bus to return home.

In the end I was pleased I could show her the city, and more pleased when discovering that she doesn’t have any friends with diabetes and is questioning  herself as to, “Whom do I tell? How much do I tell?,” that I could be a sounding board. Yet, I felt just a little niggling feeling. I had wanted to do more for her, share more, reach out more, impact her more. Yes, this niggling was about me. My husband would say (probably did say) it is my longing, my wanting to connect with others at a deep level, almost hooking into them as if Captain Hook’s hook would come out from my chest and grab onto yours.

The next day there was a flurry of new emails, pictures exchanged, and there it was — the questions I expected I would hear while we were together roaming the city. ‘A’ asked in her thank you email, “Is diabetes a factor in why you don’t have kids? I was surprised how involved your husband was with your treatment. How did that happen?  I’m just curious because it had to have been you and diabetes for a number of years before you met him and I can’t imagine I would be very willing to allow another to wedge himself into the relationship. Do you feel guilty that he has extra worries about you that he wouldn’t have about a healthy spouse? Only in the last month or so have I publicly proclaimed anything about blood sugars–e.g. announcing that I’m low or high. I’m still not sure I like being so public.  It seems more like an excuse for my behavior, a crutch that I’m letting other people know about rather than just sucking it up and dealing with it.  Then again, it’s kind of nice to let them know about it, just so it’s not so foreign.”  And finally, “I loved our conversation re: the .5 vs .25 units of insulin at lunch. That, there, was worth the trip!”

So, I got my confirmation that yes, I may be making some small difference. Maybe that’s part of my healing, that I get to help someone by sharing my knowledge and experience, just as sharing our stories are healing for each of us. It also says something else on my Home Page, that “Each one must teach one.” I believe this is true in life, and, the greatest gift you can give to another diabetic. Remarkably, it’s a gift we give not just to another, but to ourselves. If that’s selfish, I really don’t mind, since it profits everyone. But you already know that, I’m sure.