SNEEZING ON THE INSIDE
I don’t have colds like before. I don’t snuffle, stream,
sniff and blow. Instead I get a sore throat, aching joints and a woolly head.
And stupidly high blood sugar. I wonder if the pain in my joints is about my
body crossly pushing around treacle-thick blood; and if the accompanying detachment
from the world is about how slowly that blood is being squeezed around my
system; and when the blood sugar will drop sufficiently to make me feel like
all those people who don't have to constantly measure their blood, watch what
they eat and inject insulin into patches of yellow and purple bruised skin on
their increasingly resistant backsides, legs and stomachs.
Being a Type 1 Diabetic is no picnic!
I get annoyed when I read about how we all bring this diabetes
thing upon ourselves. If some newspaper and television programmes are to be
believed it must be because we eat too much fat, carbs, cake and chocolate,
right?
Wrong! In my case.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I never craved chocolate until I became diabetic.
I sometimes crave sugar because my blood sugar is high and
not converting what I’ve eaten to energy. What else is a body to do when it can
no longer makes its own insulin?
I became a diabetic because I had a terrible shock to my
system – a car crash when I was hit head on by a white van (seriously) on my
side of the carriage way, spun off the road, down a six foot drop and into a
granite wall. I broke a lot of stuff – inside and out - and not long after was diagnosed with diabetes:
first Type 2 - because I wasn’t a teenager - then, oddly, 1.5 - because I
needed insulin and it was apparent that my pancreas had stopped working
completely but I wasn’t a teenager so I didn’t fit into the norm; and finally
Type 1 – because perhaps shock, like the kind you get from a bad car crash, can
do that to your system.
The 4 injections close-monitoring routine I now work with on
a daily basis makes me clammy, light-headed, confused, exhausted, sleepy,
grumpy, irrational, determined and oddly optimistic about my lot in life.
I share part of my work life with a self-confessed
chocoholic. She is so healthy and enjoys several tipples a day, preferably
something roundish with a hard shell on the outside and softer on the in, or
soft and chocolatey on the outside and crunchy on the in: Minstrels, Cream
Eggs, speckled pastel-shaded mini-eggs, Maltesers, Heroes, Roses, Quality
Street, but strangely nothing orange tasting.
And she will lean over my desk smile and say, “You can only
have one.”
And that’s because she’s looking after my interests: my health.
That’s because she thinks (knows?) I shouldn’t even have one but it gives her
permission to have the rest of the bag. That and her unstinting generosity.
I think about chocolate. About sliding it into my mouth and
wrapping it around my tongue until it’s cloying silkiness slides between my
teeth and coats the roof of my mouth. It is so wicked and the darker the
better.
Another lovely colleague makes me chocolate. Oh yes! It’s
sugar-free apparently, made from birch juice or some-such wonder, and I can eat
it and my blood won’t boil. But there’s a rub – isn’t there always? – actually,
sugar free or no, it makes you crave more sugar, makes you think you can go
down that path and they’ll be no penalties. Next thing, if you’re not very
careful, you could be eating a full-sugar, full-fat chocolate chip brownie or a
wedge of lemon drizzle cake and convincing yourself that you can handle it.
Did I tell you the one about the bacteria party? No stick
with me on this. They certainly did! So,
at some stage, even though I am testing my blood sugars four times a day the
high-rise blood sugar got into my gums and threw a mother of a party and kept
right on throwing open-house gatherings to the point that, in protest, my gums
said, “Enough already. Get off my land.”
But the Bacteria Party Makers said, ‘Why should we? It’s
great here. I love the sugar vibe.”
And the Gums said, “There’s no room for you guys and your
party ways. Get out.”
And the Bacteria Party Makers said, “Whaddayamean no room?
Hey, there’s loads of rooms, hey, hey hey, we gonna create room, new rooms,
just to shut you up. We’re gonna create pockets. Some pockets, right here,
right in your gums. How about that?”
You know how this is going to end, don’t you? Several abscesses
later, chronic infections and a few years down the line, “There’s been an
extraction!”
I look into my NHS dentist’s hand, holding my perfectly
healthy bottom front tooth, as he tells me that it’s not my fault, that’s it’s
the diabetes. Together we have done everything to save it. But it hasn’t worked
out. I cry – again. But not so violently this time, although learning to smile
with a gap will take some time.
There you go – that’s Type 1 Diabetes for you. The good news
is my Podiatrist says I have lovely feet. And I can still feel them.
