Get comfortable, tiny audience, as Rob, the World's Least Well-Known Diabetic spins his very personal tale of psychological woe and chronic illness. Perhaps a favorite alcoholic beverage might help... although if you're a diabetic, I really don't recommend it. Diabetes and booze go together about as well as a peanut butter and mustard sandwich.
I was taught to hate my diabetes from the start. Because I was around the incubator more than my father, everything pertaining to taking care of myself was conveyed by way of screaming. I couldn't get a urine sample going before a meal? I got screamed at. I was too scared to inject my own insulin? I got screamed at. Commenting that the orange juice she bought to treat hypoglycemia tasted bad because it was in weird metal cans? Wanna guess? That's right! I got screamed at!
On that last one... We usually had an entire carton of orange juice in the fridge, but I was required to use the cans because they were exactly 6 fluid oz. (About 29.5 ml. for anyone reading from across the pond.) From some unknown source, the incubator thought that was the limit on how much orange juice should be used to treat low blood sugar. When I asked if she could at least buy apple juice instead... Do I really need to write it at this point?
At age eight, I was sent to a sleepaway camp for diabetics. (I won't name them to avoid libel.) The day was structured with periods called "more actives" and "less actives." The former meant some kind of sports activity. The latter meant doing something relaxing. Urine tests, insulin doses, and meals were neatly mixed into the schedule.
What follows is only one example of several incidents that I experienced.
The morning went like this: Wake up --> morning urine test --> insulin --> breakfast --> less active (usually policing our cabin) --> more active... which was tennis in this specific instance. I didn't know how to play tennis. I didn't want to know how to play tennis. Thus, I refused to play tennis. Instead of suggesting some other activity to get the blood moving, I got screamed at. So it was like I hadn't left home at all... except that they added an extra cruel twist. Because I refused to be active, I was denied lunch.
After making it crystal clear that I never wanted to go back to that camp for the remainder of my life, I was sent back the next summer.
It was on my second visit to that "diabetic penitentiary" that I learned to perform my own injections. It was "spare tire day," meaning we were to inject our stomachs. The nurse handed me my syringe, pointed across the infirmary, and said, "I have to go help that kid. Good luck." And she walked away.
After wrestling with the very idea of giving myself an injection at all, I finally asked if the nurse would allow me take it in my leg. With her approval, I then sat there and stared at the syringe. It wasn’t a syringe at all to my nine-year-old eyes. In my head, the tiny needle was a Scottish claymore, five feet in length and honed to the sharpness of a baseball bat. They wanted me to jab that vicious blade into my tender young flesh?!? They had to be insane!
But it was done. Achievement unlocked: Shots, shots, shots, shots-shots! (No, I will not link the song. This is supposed to be a family friendly blog. 😉 ) I would use that rhythm method of injecting myself for years to come.
Things were different when I was 10. I was sent all the way up to Massachusetts to spend time at Camp Joslin. (Remember Elliot P. Joslin? He was the doctor who thought diabetes was visually appealing... the wacko.) At this camp, they taught diabetics to live WITH diabetes, which would have been an excellent lesson for me... had I not spent 2.75 years learning to hate diabetes with every fiber of my being.
I could fill several posts with all of the abuse I endured at home from the incubator and how my father wasn't around enough to defend me and my brothers from her, but it all boils down to this: anywhere else was better than the house I grew up in.
A couple of months before my 13th birthday, I got extremely sick. It was all of the symptoms of diabetic ketoacidosis, but I was hospitalized under the diagnosis of a severe stomach virus. Two weeks later, I apparently caught it again. And as the summer moved on, I got it again... and again... and again... For the record, as far as I know, there's no such thing as a chronic stomach virus. Chronic infections? Yes. Chronic diseases? Yes. Chronic viruses? Nope. Even herpes, which IS viral, takes some time off every now and again.
Hospitalizations guaranteed me plenty of positive attention from someone – anyone! Initially, I would be pleased when my parents would come to visit me, but that novelty became worn out in short order. The incubator would come into the room, take the television remote from me, flip to her soap operas, sit and watch while knitting. She would say very little to me. When her shows were over, she would pack up and leave with a minimal goodbye. My father would rarely show up at all. He was too busy or too tired to make the trip to the hospital. The rest of my family didn’t live close enough to come to see me. I was a teenager, so most of my friends didn’t drive yet.
After a while, no one would come to visit at all. I was left alone.
Think about that for a moment. I would induce DKA so I could get away from my unhappy home and to make friends. Quite twistedly, I have fond memories of being hospitalized! And that, my miniscule audience, is clearly a sign of mental illness.
Since this was back in the 80's, mental illness still carried a heavy stigma. Today, mental illness is recognized and acknowledged as a genuine problem. Mental illness is mental illness, which mental illness mental illness mental illness. (I was already using the phrase too much, so I decided to run wild with it.)
The reality is that physical illness comes with mental illness. Even if you're in perfect health, a bad head cold will make you feel emotionally down. Now imagine the condition is chronic. Diabetes. Asthma. Colitis. Migraine headaches. The list goes on and on, and they all come with varying degrees of depression. And if the condition is terminal...? I'm not qualified to discuss that, but I can only imagine how bad it would be.
As it is, I can tell you how bad depression is from my own perspective. I've been officially diagnosed with severe recurrent depression and PTSD, with the incubator contributing generously to both. The best description I've ever heard to describe depression: Imagine you're lying in bed, and in the middle of your bedroom floor is a magic wand that will fix everything that's wrong with your life. All you have to do is pick it up and wave it around a bit. Depression saps you of the will and energy to even roll onto the floor, pick up the incredibly light wand, and give it a few casual waves.
Those diagnoses of mental illness came later in my life. During my teens, while other kids were delving into drugs and alcohol, I was getting into Twizzlers. It was my way of self-medicating. Y'see, that's what addicts are often doing. They're treating their illnesses with that which makes them feel good, or at least helps them forget why they're miserable. Me? I went to the hospital for a week or so, where I was treated well and was able to forget my miserable home life.
Why tell you all of this? Because there's always an underlying reason why a diabetic would allow themselves to become so violently ill. My reason was an unhappy home. And if you're a diabetic who's often losing control, you need to ask yourself that big introspective question: Why?
Between the ages of 13 and 20, I was hospitalized countless times. I know it's over 50, but I officially lost count after I turned 16. And every one of those hospitalizations did more and more long-term damage to my body without me noticing. I would learn much later what I'd done to myself.
So... We feeling good? Everyone bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and happier than clams?
No?! NO?!? Fine. I'll improve everyone's day with that picture of the beautiful, scantily clad woman I mentioned last post.
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments are no longer moderated. Hate speech, politics, and religion are not welcome in the comment section UNLESS they are directly related to the post's subject, such as the price of insulin. Please be civil. Be advised that I am often EXTREMELY honest with my answers, so be absolutely sure you want an answer before asking any questions.