Things Fall Apart

After writing that post last nght I slept the sleep of the dead for a lovely 6 1/2 hours, waking up 2 minutes before my alarm at 8:28 a.m. Then I do what I do every morning when I wake up by myself: I wonder about my bloodsugar and then I check it. When I'm with Peter sometimes I lollygag around in bed and don't check my bloodsugar right away, but more often I do. And sometimes I have to wake up in the middle of the night and check my bloodsugar. I remember the first night I slept over at his house and had to check my bloogsugar, and I felt so self-conscious about doing so and I didn't want to wake him up (not knowing yet that he pretty much sleeps the sleep of the dead, too), and I didn't want to turn on the bathroom light, so I kind of sat in his hallway, half-dressed, looking for a decent swatch of moonlight in which to read my blood sugar on my moniter.

Now I just turn on the bedside light. Because I'm a jerk.

This morning my bloodsugar was 101. That's perfect. That meant I didn't have to worry about shooting in a tiny amount of insulin before I walked the dog (since slightly high bloodsugars in the a.m. can be elevated by exercise, unlike any other time in the day, something I only had confirmed by an endocrinologist about 2 years ago, but which I'd suspected and dealt with on my own that entire time), or that I had to raid the fridge for juice or chocolate because my bloodsugar was low.

Why am I saying this? Because no one knows these things, besides other diabetics. Peter said that before we go to the Grand Canyon to go hiking he needs to read up more about diabetes. Which he should. I'm emailing him links right now, actually. But while moleskin and blisters and dehydration mean one thing for a non-diabetic, they mean a whole nother thing for me. And unfortunately (look at what this says about me) the things that I worry about the most is failing, is impeding the other hikers, is embarrassing myself by getting some weird infection or ailment or sickness. Basically, showing I'm not tough enough, or up to the challenge.

The thing about diabetes that sucks is that it compromises every other system in your body. I am more prone to everything from stroke to periodontal disease. So now, when I have this dumb infection, it is hard not to see my body as anything but decay, as a general loosing of anarchy, but within this tiny world of my singular body.

One of the things that I love about Peter is that he doesn't think of me in these terms: as someone who has junk parts, as a sick person, as someone who, 50 years prior, would've been long dead at this point. He sees me in terms of possibility, and that is why I was so happy when he asked me to go on this trip, as if it wasn't no big thing. And it will be a good trip; I'm just going to have to be extra careful, and try to stay extra hydrated.

And the New Orleans trip, yeah, has a whole other set of concerns, related to diabetes stuff as well. As far as I can tell the main focus of this trip is food. And I can't do that--overindulge. Maybe once in a while, like when we went to Incanto the other week, but not for days on end. I will be ill and high blood sugared and....and again, what do I worry about? Looking like an asshole in front of Peter's friends. Of being a drag, a food teetotaler, distinctly unfun, of not getting into the Dionysian spirit of the affair. I get room-spinning drunk on 3 glasses of wine. If I eat more than 2 pieces of delicious crusty bread I have to take at least 3 more units of insulin. If I get dehydrated I may get a UTI. If I drink to the point of throwing up I may have to go to the hospital if I bloodsugars crash and I can't hold down food.

But overall, I can and have handled all of it. When I got food poisoning in a hostel in New Zealand I threw up for 24 hours and checked my bloodsugar every hour on the hour. When I nearly cut off my little finger on a bar glass last year I healed remarkably quickly.

It's not all in my head. It's in every cell in my laboring, needle-brusied body. But mostly, it is in my head. And I have to deal with it. I just have these freakouts, about once a year, actually. They're usually preceded by some event that has been affected or prevented by my disease. And this year there have been many in a row already. So I guess it's about time. It's just something I have to work through. So forgive me this indulgence. The puking on the page, so to speak. But it's been buzzing frantically inside of me for some days now, interrupted by crying jags in the liquor closet at the bar or in the backyard at 2 a.m. It'll end soon, on its own. It just needs to work itself out.