Don't drive angry!

I used to drive angry.  Oh yes.  Not on an actual road, of course: I didn't get my driver's license until I was in my twenties.  My mother drove me to the DMV and waved at me while I drove away with the instructor in tow.  I may be eternally young, but behind the wheel I'm Abe Vigoda.

No, I speak of the day-to-day fisticuffs with unruly blood sugars.  There were the ever-popular rage boluses, pumping unit after unit into my candied, sluggish blood.  Then I would anticipate (oh, I knew full well what was going to happen, thus embiggening my RAGE) the inevitable bout of mass consumption of any and all food in the kitchen as the massive rebounding low smacked me directly in the brain and pancreas.

oh nom nom I eat because I'm unhappy
and I'm unhappy because I eat nom

I also enjoyed multiple sessions of selective blindness, testing my sugar, allowing my eyes to pass over the angry red numbers, and yet seeing NOTHING.

For all my diligence, I was often a stubborn and non-compliant jerk.  This was no good for my physical or mental health, but was a wealth of material for Diabetes Almighty.

However, the last three months or so have been something completely different.  I changed medications, my workout routine, stopped eating like a fool and SURPRISE!  I lost weight, my insulin needs were greatly reduced, and my a1c plummeted.  Everything is sunshine and rainbows.

GAH!  Not like that.

I carved out this little niche in the internets to wallow in my emptiness while listening to the early catalogue of the Cure.  I also needed an excuse for my collection of eyeliner.  It has helped immensely. Even though I'm more Friday I'm in Love than The Hanging Garden these days, I still have a whole lot to say.  

Well, sometimes.  Sometimes I really just want to listen to Robert Smith and read a book.

 

Sound the alarm on my holy hill!

Where have you BEEN?  Oh, that's right.
In my heart.

I don't have television.  Perhaps you've tweezed that nugget of information from between the lines of my prose here.  Going to the gym is the only time I see contemporary broadcast programming.  I have the Netflix, and I love her so, but she's a bit behind the times, which appeases my inner Luddite.  Well, until I finish season two of Downton Abbey.  Then I'll be creeping in my neighbor's bushes, watching through the windows.

So, there I am on the elliptical, just up in the gym working on my fitness, when what to my wondering eyes should appear?

Oh my God.  My pace slows, but my heart rate quickens dramatically.  Can it be?  I slump against those awkward elliptical arms, straining my neck and squinting my eyes to see the television.  I'm probably panting by this point.  No.  They're focusing on Bourdain.  Out of the way, Tony!  Stop yakking about nonna's cooking!  Perhaps it's just a trick of my overworked brain.  I'm suffering from delusions, I'm hallucinating right here in the....

Yes.

YES.

She was here.  My Nigella.  Nigella, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Nigh-gel-la: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Nigh.  Gel.  La.

A mere forty-five minutes earlier, I had drug myself to the gym, fully planning on dogging it and feeling guilty about it during my off day tomorrow.  Then there was her.

The Taste.  Whatever.  Give me Nigella and you can name that show whatever you want.  I could hear her breathy voice, her lilting accent, wafting right off the closed captioning and into my soul.

I was a transformed man.  There will be no shame tomorrow.  Only joy.  The joy of once again stealing a glimpse of my Nigella.

Then I defy you stars!

So.

I caught the burn-out bad this fall.  Numbers were a mess.  None of my adjustments worked.  Those first few weeks, caught in a hellish spiral of syrupy glucose readings, I felt wronged.  Hot shame burned my delicate face.  I desired vengeance.  This aggression would not stand.

I was emotional!  I was enraged!  I was...fat?

I got heavy.  Real heavy.  There's photographic evidence.  It was that sneaky weight.  I hate that sneaky weight gain.  Somehow it manages to distract you every time you sense something afoot, and by the time you figure it out all your favorite pants are too tight.

I gave up.  Or, more appropriately, I gave in.  Oh, I still took my sugars and dosed like a compliant patient, but it was all a ruse.  I ate what I wanted, went to the gym when I felt like it, and pretended I didn't care.

Oh, but inside, inside I wept the bitter tears of a defeated diabetic.

I was also busy.  I'm talking Ryan Seacrest busy.  I know.  Wah.  Wah wah waaaaah.

Things have changed.

I am back, and I have this scarlet woman on the run.  Run, you chronic and incurable minx, run!

Now I'm ready to EAT MY...I mean, share my feelings.  I want to share them.  They are delicious.  I would eat them all, but I'm totally full on this plain chicken breast and low-fat yogurt I ate for lunch.  And dinner.  No, really.  You should try these feelings.  They taste like salted caramel and dreams.  JUST LET ME WATCH YOU WHILE YOU EAT THEM.

Slower.  Chew slower.  Make those little moans that annoying people make when they want to broadcast to everyone at the table how much they love what's in their mouth right now.  God, yes.  Right there.  Let me get my camera.

On a lighter note

Close the door!
Let me give you what you've been waiting for.
Baby, I've got so much love to give,
I want to give it all to YOU.

If a Pink Lady apple was a woman, I would take her OUT on a DATE and TREAT HER RIGHT.

God, I love Pink Ladies.  Don't give me that Honeycrisp baloney.  Always people insist on countering with their Honeycrisp mularkey.  The Honeycrisp is the Barry Bonds of apples.  Give me a Pink Lady any day.  I would have such relations with a Pink Lady that a grotesque human-apple hybrid would bear my surname.

Obviously Teddy loves Pink Ladies too.

Sing it, Teddy, SING IT!

Medtronic continues her automated reign of terror

Me, sometime during the urban campaign of the war against Medtronic.
Spoiler alert: The losses are heavy and the carnage horrific,
 but I did hook up with a totally eighties Linda Hamilton.
So at least I have that going for me.

When last we visited the great war between common sense and Medtronic, I was having midday emotional meltdowns and quoting Brokeback Mountain.  I've taken some time, medicated heavily and with great frequency, and am ready to address the latest developments from the front.

Once I realized that Medtronic had become self-aware, directing her vengeful wrath upon me, I deactivated my account.  There was a lot of shouting in tongues involved, but the poor guy that answered the phone that fateful day managed to do that much for me.

I rush home to take inventory of ALL the Medtronic gear in the house, agents of the enemy at this point, recording my every word and action.  Of this I have no doubt.  I am appalled by the amount of stuff I have amassed from these heartless robot overlords.  After locking all the boxes in the fully lead-lined bomb shelter conveniently located in my basement, I wrap my head in tinfoil and sleep in the shower.

I return EVERYTHING.  I made this call prepared for verbal warfare.  At the slightest sign of resistance from AnswerBot 79942-458 located deep in their Californian stronghold I would unleash a stream of spoken hellfire sure to melt their neural connections from three thousand miles away.  Not only is there no resistance, the AnswerBot sends samples to "get me through".  Upon their arrival I immediately stuff them into the garbage disposal while chanting in Aramaic, just to be safe.

To be fair, the woman that started the return process was especially nice and gentle, soothing my ravaged soul.  Perhaps she was a prototype, some advanced model that MANIPULATES FEELINGS, but I have no complaints.  She was sweet to me in a time of need.

Any sweetness soon decays into putrescence as the battle drags on.  First, someone from the central stronghold calls, a true human from the sound of her voice.  I know she has traded her freedom and imminent destruction for a life of dominance and slavery at the hands of her mechanical overlords, but I speak to her anyway.  Well, I listen to her voicemail, and attempt to call her back.  Seems like one of the explorer drones "found my blogsite". 

(yes, the term "blogsite" was used.  I sat on my couch and cackled for a good forty minutes.  Someone in the hive searched "Medtronic" and up popped a picture of Buffalo Bill.  HAHAHA.  heh)  

She happens to call as I'm leaving town, and anytime I return her call I am unable to reach her.  This is possibly for the best, for as I decode her messages I discover she has no interest in making things right - she only wants me back in the hive.  

Little does she know I've masked my thoughts with tinfoil and have successfully cast off the hivemind taint.  Oh yes, I have become taintless.  Someone in the hive learns of my taintlessness quickly (I was lazy with the tinfoil a few nights) and the return calls cease abruptly.  My cell phone joins the infusion set samples in the garbage disposal.  I replace all of the lightbulbs in my house with ultraviolet and switch to generic foil, fearing Medtronic has infiltrated the Reynold's factory.

I continue to receive bills for astronomical amounts.  I handle them with specially designed gloves.  The paper burns painfully bright, like magnesium, and I know they've implanted listening devices within the  paper, maybe even within the molecules of the ink.  My fear is great.

Then the automated phone calls begin.

This is a call from Medtronic! (a distorted aberration of a female voice drones, the screaming of human captives audible in the distance).  We are calling to warn you that your account will soon be deactivated...

The anger descends, hot and blindingly white.  I deactivated my account months ago.  Please, you heartless, emotionless deviants, deactivate it again.  The calls continue, the artificial recording mocking me, startling me from my restless sleep.  I wrap more tinfoil around my temples and attempt to steal a few more hours of haunted respite.

Finally, after months of this psychological terrorism, I receive a bill that actually reflects the hundred of dollars of returns I submitted.  The bill is now three hundred sixty-some dollars.  In my Diabetes Hostage Cell, I grapple long and hard with my next move: do I continue to fight, knowing that there is no hope, or do I send them their pound of flesh?  Either way I face annihilation.

I emerge from the Cell, emaciated and light-sensitive.  I will pay them, but in tiny little increments.  Instead of a single pound of flesh, I send small, tattered bits of excised meat, ragged and dirtied with clotted blood.  I sincerely hope this creates havoc in the billing office.  I hope that some underpaid office monkey is forced to do a whole lot of annoying typing every time they receive one of these partial tithings.

This is where the battle still stands.  Most of the major cities continue to burn, the ashes filling the atmosphere, creating perpetual night.  The rebel forces have splintered, fleeing to the rural areas, hiding underground and focused only on survival, not rebellion.  I'm down to two or three shipments of flesh.

Never again, Medtronic.  You may have won the war, but I still think my own thoughts.  You will never own my mind.  NEVER.

MEDTRONIC'S JAM.  Plays all day in the hive.

Please keep all pointy objects away from my bubble.

For the summer I decided to tour the country.  In a bubble.  On Danny Trejo's bike.

So....I haven't been around much lately.  Last you may of heard from me, I had written what someone very judgmental close to me referred to as "the lamest post".  Well, I'm sorry that my insight to a book about diabetes didn't thrill you.  In fact, I'm sorry I'm not sorry.

When the smoke clears, after the police leave, as I'm picking shards of broken dinnerware from the walls, I think back to that last post.  I realize that post was lame.  I had just finished school, was deep in the mountains, wanting to cast off this taint and become taintless.  So I phoned one in and turned my back.

Okay, maybe I am sorry.  Just a little bit.

I also realized something else about my blogging habits: I only want to write when I'm in some sort of medical crisis.  Even though I have run the gamut from vaguely annoyed to biblically infuriated with folks that brush off the day-to-day of this disease, I have to admit it's really boring sometimes.

Consider:

Dear Diary,

Today I slept in later than I wanted to, and my sugar was (lower than/higher than/just where) I wanted it to be.  I went to the gym, and it was (awesome/horrifying/delicious).  I slept through the night OR I woke up with a brutal, Creature-from-the-Black-Lagoon-sweating low, and wildly overcompensated by drinking two gallons of milk and polishing off an industrial-sized tub of chocolate icing.  I shot up in a restaurant and was self-conscious about it.

(Hey, that last one got real for a second.  Even in my lighter moments I come correct.  Great, now I'm going to go and EAT MY FEELINGS.  They taste like peanut butter and dark chocolate.  Sometimes Combos.)

Any of these things would make a decent post, especially if I augmented it with explosions and evil dwarves.  Right now, I find myself in the diabetes doldrums, in which I just keep my head down and cope.

That is not to say some wild things have not happened as of late.  I had a wild fever for a week that made me hallucinate.  I get lows at the least opportune times.  The folks at the lab lost my insurance card.  I RAN OUT OF INSULIN FOR A WEEKEND WAH.  waaaah.

I like this little nook I've worried from the bedrock of the internet.  I like that there might actually be a few folks visiting my...crannies.  I'm not out of the game.  I just went on a cross-country motorcycle adventure with Danny Trejo while trapped in a giant bubble.

Besides, I'm due for a new medical emergency.  It's been quiet around here.  A little too quiet.

Breakthrough: A Book for the Reading

No, not the one written by Suzanne Somers that will make you live forever,
and possibly turn you into a vampire.

 "Is that insulin?" she whispered.

"Yes," he whispered back.  He swabbed her thigh with alcohol.

She watched him fill the syringe.

Just before he injected her he asked, "Will you promise me one thing, Miss Elizabeth Hughes?  Will you promise me that if you get well - when you get well - you will grow up to be whoever and whatever you want to be and you won't let anyone persuade you to do or be something or someone else?"

Elizabeth must have sensed what it had cost Banting to become who he was, what it had cost him to carry the idea of insulin against seemingly impossible odds, repeated failure, and constant debt and doubt, all the way to the office in which they sat now.  Or perhaps she had caught a glimpse of a profound loneliness behind his eyes.  In any case, she nodded solemnly, just before the needle pierced her meager hip.

Melodramatic?  Yes.  Possibly chock full of half-truths and wishful thinking?  Most likely.  I say so be it.  This book was amazing.  I've ranted before about the greatness of Bliss' The Discovery of Insulin, but I admit that for some, that book may prove too rough, too rude and too boisterous, or at least a little dense.

This one is the opposite.  It is full of "dramatic imaginings" like the one quoted above, without the poorly costumed actors seen in those dramatizations on the History channel (I saw one where Saddam Hussein looked like Nintendo's Mario and the Ayatollah like Walt Whitman).  Maybe it's not actually what these folks said to each other, all those years ago.  It still makes for good reading.  The authors also fully admit that they're historial conjurers, lexophilic summoners, and I respect that.

Where else can you find blow-by-blow descriptions of Banting losing his mind and laying an old-fashioned Canadian beat-down on Bert Collip?  We're also treated to the inner musings of a highly inebriated Fred, having gotten bombed on stolen medical-grade alcohol, and his desire to give up medicine and take up painting.  Also, a diabetic child on the starvation diet eats his own pet bird.

So good.  Read it.  Trust me.

"Banting leaped on Collip in the university halls, threw him down, banged his head on the floor and bellowed: So, you will call this Collip's serum will you?"
(later, at a meeting) Collip's face bore the plum-colored vestige of a black eye.

YES.

Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle by Thea Cooper and Arthur Ainsburg