May 9, 2013 · 4:07 am

Untired Inspiration: Educational Creativity

Whether I’m watching the work of other talented Latinas or talking about work with talented Latinos, I feel like I’m always inspired. It doesn’t cease. My mind is always going, always working, always thinking about what to do to make the world a better place, how I can help make the community better, how I can be of service to those who think they don’t need my help.

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Mural in Pilsen, across the street from Dvorak Park | Pablo Serrano

I have the pleasure of living and interacting with some of the most talented people in Chicago that many might know but few get to encounter the way I encounter them on a weekly basis. I am a privileged artist among artists because of the people I speak to. Sometimes I might not get the work done that I need to get done. I might have to work on something, take a phone call and be aware of my time management, but I am also learning so much more than I can from keeping to myself and talking to my computer.

I find that building community and interacting with people who I find fascinating  who can teach me a thing or two about the place in which I live helps me to be healthier and fulfills my life with the wisdom to see just how I can be a positive impact and light for others. This is what makes me find more passion for what I do and how I work.

The two artists that I had the pleasure of speaking with today, along with the artists that I know within the community are very much that— community oriented. In addition, they teach and carry that inherent wisdom with them as they converse and exchange thoughts with people like me, who may not work the same way they do, but am creative (or so I’d like to think) anyway.

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Naco posting wheat paste | Pilsen

It’s hard to walk away from the conversations and the deep-rooted philosophies  feeling uninspired. It made me want to do something more. It made me want to do what I do better.

In the midst of that conversation, I had a call about a project that my company is working on. A diabetes initiative that talks to the community about being Type 2 diabetes from a culturally relevant standpoint. Nuances and bilingualism included. My phone call had strong validation for what we’re trying to do; the education we’re trying to bring to people who feel that diabetes is a death sentence or that there is nothing preventative that one can do about the dreadful disorder.

It might not have fallen inline with the visual art of these two extremely talented individuals  but it is a creative venture. Knowing that there is someone, a head of a foundation, a person with diabetes himself and who is offering his help in distribution and collaborative services, who is behind what we are trying to get going is inspiring in itself.

This call, coupled with local, community-based perspectives made my day, to say the least. I was validated on various fronts, moving different ideas forward and coming up with ways to initiate furthering the community’s reach above and beyond the city of Chicago; whether it’s through health initiatives, teaching people about culture or both.

Social, insightful and stimulating: if this isn’t good for me, I don’t know what is.

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April 29, 2013 · 7:52 pm

El Cafecito lindo y querido

coffeeI love coffee. I really, really like coffee. It makes me focus. It tastes and smells delicious.

I’m a chronic coffee shop goer. A friend and I call it, “coffee shopping.” Every morning I have to decide which of the multiple cafes in the Pilsen neighborhood here in Chicago.

Sitting in coffee shops, you get to meet a lot of different people in the community. If you know anything about Pilsen, there are many artists that live in the community. Muralists, musicians, painters, drawers, writers, graphic designers, you name it, you can find it in a Pilsen cafe.

Those of us who work remotely typically sit in the same places, bumping into each other until someone finally takes the initiative to introduce themselves.

We talk about life, work, the community, among other things and most of all there is  a sense of collaborative effort in whatever sense you can think of. From people listening to problems to an expansion of philosophical thought, you just might be able to find it in a cafe. I love that about these little places. It doesn’t matter that you live in the community. Cafes give you a place to work when you’re tired of looking at the walls in your apartment. Coffee gives you the jolt to make it happen.

Coffee has always been something special for me. If I hang out at my parents’ house long enough, we usually have decaffeinated coffee after dinner with pan dulce to make us drowsy enough for bed. It gives us all time to sit around the living room and talk about what’s on television.

As a child, my tía Carmen and I would play tea time, except with coffee. We would eat cookies, too, which I would dunk in the coffee; something I still do to this day. I like to dunk. She hated when I would dunk in her cup, so I would do it often.

Sometimes, coffee feels like a right of passage, especially when you used to hear, “Don’t drink coffee or else it’ll stunt your growth!” Which is not true.

According to studies, nutritionists fear cream and sugar more than the actual coffee for children and even adults. When I used to go to the McDonald’s in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, which I so lovingly called the Puerto Rican McDonald’s (especially since they played salsa every morning), I used to hear people’s orders: 8 creams, 12 sugars; 2 cream, 10 sugars. I’m not even kidding.  That is the honest to God truth.

On a level of health concerns, you shouldn’t be afraid of coffee if you drink it black. But if you’re a sweet-toothed type of person, beware. Coffee elevates my blood sugar. I’ve written about it before. Mainly it’s because of the caffeine which boosts the adrenaline which is what also wakes me up to focus. Typically, taking a unit or two of insulin brings it back down to normal, although cream could make a bit of a difference.

It has become even more interesting since recently a study came out saying that over 70 percent of Latinos drink coffee, which I didn’t doubt for a second. Other studies have found that coffee can help prevent Type 2 diabetes, something I might be skeptical about, but hey, if it gives you a reason to drink a cup of Joe, go right ahead. You can will yourself to wake up in the morning with that one.

I’m just going to say that I lost the thrill for this blog post since losing it twice and having to rewrite it. So excuse my lack of focus or enthusiasm in this post. I might have just had one cup of coffee too little. Ha!

 

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April 19, 2013 · 8:14 pm

DENIED Because of a Pre-exisiting Condition

As I was walking in this gloomy weather, I couldn’t help but think about the issues I have to go through because I am a person with diabetes. I mean, among those with diabetes, I feel like we talk about it all the time.

Checking blood sugar.

Counting carbohydrates.

Faulty hardware for pumps.

Blood sugars too high.

Blood sugars too low.

Frustration, anger, sadness, impatience.

Happiness for balance.

But then you realize that there’s more. That every move you make and every physical illness or issue that you may come across gets blamed on diabetes. It’s not like people ask you, “How does that affect your diabetes?” Most of the time, they ask, “Is that because of your diabetes?”

Blood sugar meme1The “outsiders” are not the only ones who think about it. We do, too. I do, all the time. Pain, numbness, headaches, skin discoloration: the first question I ask myself is, “Am I not taking care of myself well enough?” It’s a scary feeling. Especially for me, right now, it’s hard to try and feel as though I’m not falling apart.

Remember Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic?” Yeah. That’s me. I had great insurance coverage and took it all for granted that I could see whatever doctor, whenever I needed to and get supplies every three months. As soon as I remember that I don’t have insurance, I feel like everything hurts, my eyesight is going, my head’s going to fall off and I won’t be able to remember my own name tomorrow.

People like me, we need insurance. We need it to pay for supplies, hardware, strips, trips to the doctor, tests, everything really. However, I currently don’t have health insurance. Due to this little pre-existing condition that has ruled my life, I have been rejected and will be rejected by any major medical insurance carrier.  Trust me, I’ve applied. If you know of any major medical plan that judges you by “Do You Have Any Current Health Issues?” let me know.

Then you have all these other insurance companies that say they will cover you because you become part of a pool of people who also have preexisting conditions. Nope. It’s not major medical and it’s a rip-off. Coverage at the pharmacy, what I need the most for test strips and insulin, was non-existent. I was being charged incredible amounts of money for a three-month supply of anything. They didn’t cover anything. It was quite ridiculous and a waste of money.

When it came to hardware for my pump, I had to pay out-of-pocket and was charged $138 for one month. Before, I didn’t have to pay for it. Oh, you lucky people with a pancreas that works!

I don’t know if it makes me feel any better, but I usually explain why I don’t have health insurance. I tell them I’ve started my own business, that I’m an entrepreneur and that I am trying to make it happen for myself and for those who are involved. It’s hard. When I didn’t have insurance a few years ago, my doctor kept telling me to work at Starbucks. Guess what. I applied and never got a call.

Look, I don’t want to work in a cubicle for someone who calls me ”Christine” and underestimates my abilities. I’m not a corporate ladder climber. I want to do things for myself and run the quick game that I play. I never wanted to be limited by this disease– this disorder– and it’s not fair that I am.

I keep asking for a miracle of some sort. The only hope at this point is for 2014 to get here and for people to tell me that having diabetes is not going to hinder my ability to get a major medical plan. I really don’t understand why some people don’t understand my ambition. It’s not more important than my health, but at the same time, it’s at the same level.

With or without health insurance I’m vigilant over my blood sugar, my health and the way I feel. The downside, of course, is the fact that I have to pay for everything out-of-pocket. As much as it sucks and as much as I owe doctors money right now, I have no choice. I’m hoping that regardless of what I decide to do, I will be taken care of and someone is looking over me.

For now, I raise my cafecito cup to all of us that have health battles to endure yet keep going, fighting and following our dreams and desires. You’re not alone and neither am I. Cheers to you for doing what you want and not being limited by this blasted body you’ve been given.

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Filed under Complications, Doctors, Hospitals, Treatments

April 17, 2013 · 7:43 am

At 28, I’m Ready To Bring It Back

Hi world at Kikisbetes.com!

It’s been a while since I’ve been here on my very own site with my very own insights and blogs. What a blessing. Yesterday I decided that I was going to revive the blog and it was a long time coming. Well, actually about a week and a half. I went down to Miami for the Hispanicize conference and met a ton of Latinos all doing the same thing; making it happen with their own insight, brands and storytelling.

Pump and I at Hispanicize

If you don’t already know, I’m a founding member of Pícaro Media, a content creation company for the Latino market. We’re pretty cool, if I may say so myself. Anyway, we went down to South Beach and I knew I was going to find one fellow diabetes blogger. As I sat in her panel discussion, I asked a question and was approached by several different people about having diabetes. I realized that since I have become a representative of myself and what I do, I would have to revive this blog. It’s a good thing, too. I have a lot to talk about.

I made it to 28 everyone! I know, plenty of you are saying that that’s so young, but it feels good to be another year older with more wisdom under my belt. Wisdom, friends, insights, experiences, the whole thing feels delectable.

So here come the diabetes stories I have. On my way down to Miami, I was harassed by the TSA again.  Not harassed, since I’m used to it, but instead of putting me through the metal detector, when I refuse the body scanner they automatically have to pat me down. That’s slightly ridiculous if you ask me. It happened going to and coming from and is a pain in the butt. There has to be a standardized way of handling us people with diabetes, I tell you. Because it’s becoming very unfair. Like I said before, I don’t ask for privacy because I want people to see what I go through so they learn and know how discriminatory it is.

Secondly, I was listening to Dr. Oz today as I was getting ready to leave my apartment and I heard him say, “This is what happens to diabetics.” It irked me. To have a “doctor” say that kind of sucked. This little pet peeve about words, I think, makes more sense coming from me as a journalist and a grammar Nazi. However, on the other hand, these words have an impact on the people of whom you are speaking. It’s like calling someone “disabled.” We are not defined by these words. We are merely subject to the limitations these issues have on our lives, but it doesn’t stop us from living. Properly, it is said “People with diabetes,” and “People with a disability.” Done and done.

I think that’s it for now. I just wanted to share a bit so that I can tell people I’m bringing this back to live for my 28th year of life. I feel good about it. It’s moving forward and so am I.

Thanks for reading! :)

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April 13, 2011 · 6:41 pm

You’re Probably Wondering Where I’ve Been…

I’m still here, but now, I’m blogging for ChicagoNOW. They’ve accepted my application to talk about Diabetes to a much larger audience. Don’t be sad, though. I’ll still be posting as often from that site now and you can subscribe to the good stuff!

Please continue reading. Your help and support is truly appreciated!

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/living-with-diabetes/

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March 30, 2011 · 5:37 pm

And the point of working out is… Bad dreams!

So everyone knows that working out is good for you. That’s no secret. But when you’re diabetic and on medication for it, working out is a problem. My doctor used to laugh and would say something like, “Yeah, you work out to lose weight, then your blood sugar goes down and you have to eat.” There’s basically no winning in the game.

Like everything else, there is a solution to the problem, not that I’ve found it yet. Working out is like a double-edged sword. You either have to do it consistently so that your insulin intake reflects it (if you’re on the pump) or you have to turn the darn thing off when you’re stretching, moving and grooving. I don’t work out at the same time every day, so the bolus schedule that I’m on is hard to come by. I can change it every day, but I’m too lazy to do that. Usually my work outs last for about 45 minutes, so I just take it off, do my thing and put it back on. That’s not an issue.

But my question is, how are you supposed to deal with monitoring yourself when you’re not awake?! My problems have always come at night. Either my blood sugar sky rockets when I sleep or it drops dramatically. Take for example, yesterday. Yesterday I came home from work and decided to work out. Midway through, my sugar had dropped to 75 so I took a swig of regular soda and kept going. At the end after the cool down, it had dropped again to 67. That’s when I ate. I hadn’t had dinner so this was my chance to eat without feeling too guilty about it.

As I showered, cleaned and watched a little more television while Tweeting away, I was super-duper thirsty. I went to check myself and I was up at 247. “That’s why!” I thought to myself. My pump suggested about three units of insulin which I manually lowered because I knew that I might drop, and that was that.

As I drifted off to dream land, I had a peculiar dream. I was on the phone with a man who was having a heart attack. At the same time I was in a hospital, trembling and I thought to myself, “Am I feeling what this man is feeling?” I started to shake harder, which is when I opened my eyes. I was wide awake at 3:15 in the morning. As I got up, I was disoriented. I went to check my blood sugar. 37. I had dropped to 37. It was incredible. And there I went, turning on the TV, grabbing my box of Cap’n Crunch and watching a rerun of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, or whatever it’s called. If you look at my twitter account, you’ll see my comments at about 3:30.

There’s nothing worse that going back to bed after an episode like that. I checked myself again and I was already at 75. I was on my way up. In the morning I was at 209 with a dry mouth and headache. I got my insulin and went about my day. Let me tell you, my body has not caught up yet. Last meter check, I was at 120. With that Cap’n Crunch love affair, I can tell you that I might have eaten everything I burned off with my work out. How terrible is that?

If your blood sugar has never dropped, you wouldn’t understand. The feeling of passing out and not being able to get up when you live alone is horrendous! When I was struggling to get the tiny strip out of the bottle to check my blood sugar, I was sweating, shaking and kept thinking, what if I pass out? Who’s going to help me?

If your blood sugar is too low, that’s it. You die quicker from having a low blood sugar than a high one. Hypoglycemia, when your blood sugar drops below 60, can lead to seizure, coma and even death if not treated. Dying from high blood sugar takes a little more than 24 hours. You can now understand the fear of hypoglycemia to an extent.

There are different ways to solve this problem, obviously eating is one of them. It’s just the control that gets most people. You panic, feel like you’re starving and just want to get rid of that ugly feeling so you EAT! When I was younger, that was my chance to get at those Oreos.

But if, God forbid, you ever see someone pass out from hypoglycemia, what you’re supposed to do is rub either sugar or icing on the inside of the person’s cheek. It’s the quickest way to the blood stream. If there is a glucagon injection near by, you can also administer that.

Glucagon injections do not inject sugar into your system. Glucagon itself is a group of 29 amino acids that trigger your liver to release glucose so that your system is always at a balance. When people pass out, the injection, which is concentrated glucagon, tells your liver to release all its stored up glucose so that your body jolts itself back to normality. Crazy isn’t it? All these things you have to learn!

But there’s always a balance, right? Like eating a snack before bed, which I didn’t do because my sugar was already high. I didn’t want to be that high, so I took insulin for it. I guess this just goes to show that no matter how much you THINK you have this monster of diabetes in check, sometimes you don’t. Your body is still a body, doing things on its own. We’re not machines and we don’t work like clock work sometimes. That’s the reality of it.

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March 24, 2011 · 7:55 pm

The World Epidemic that No One Gets

First of all, I would like to announce that I am now a member of the American Diabetes Association’s Young Professionals Board, which is the only one in the nation thus far. Lucky for me, it’s here in Chicago and in need of more members. There are 16 of us total, who either have or know someone who has or has passed from diabetes complications. We’re getting somewhere!

Next, I would like to point out that Tuesday was Diabetes Alert Day. Throughout the day, people got out and said, “Hey! Are you at risk for Type 2 diabetes?! Take this risk test and find out.” Interesting how people never did this before when not very many people had diabetes, but it’s good that they’re getting out and fighting the good fight.

On the same day, or might have been Wednesday, Novo Nordisk released a press release talking about the effects that diabetes is having on the world. They expressed their concern for those who don’t have the resources necessary to take care of themselves. They also asked, when there will be enough to help the situation? Diabetes is not a cheap disorder to have, let me tell you.

They bring up a very valid point. When 79 million Americans have prediabetes, which is still abnormally high blood sugar readings, 26 million have already been diagnosed with it,  and there is a “diabetes belt” in the US alone, you have to think, when are these people going to get the help they need?And this is all Type 2 Diabetes by the way. Only five percent of those with diabetes have Type 1.

Do people not get it yet? Now they’re talking about a pill that will prevent “the move” from prediabetes to diabetes. As much as it sounds like it, this is not HIV to AIDS. This is you eating a salad instead of pizza and eating vegetables even if they’re out of a can. This is losing weight and knowing that you don’t have to die a disgusting and miserable death IF YOU DON’T WANT TO.

When are people going to start listening to what they have to change? In the end, you want to know who’s winning in all of this? Pharmaceutical companies. You’re on their pills, on their drugs and you start to get dependent on it all. Why don’t people grow a pair and decide to take this head on?

I knew a guy who was diagnosed with Type 2 and he emailed me asking what he should do. I said, go see a doctor, first of all. Next stay away from anything with added sugar. No pop, no sweets. Stay away. You want to be able to fight this off with little or no medication. It IS possible to put Type 2 Diabetes into REMISSION. The next time I saw him was in our offices, when someone asked if he wanted a sugary drink, similar to pop. “No, thanks,” I heard him stay. “Since I was diagnosed, I’ve been trying to keep away from the sweet stuff.” He then came to me and said that he had lost a significant amount of weight since he had emailed me. He was getting help and taking my advice. Do you know how good I felt that someone had actually decided to take care of themselves? Now only if we could get the rest of the United States to do this.

The other thing that angers me is that information that is supposedly new and recently done research is old news. Not exactly old, but it’s common sense. Now it’s, obese teens are at risk for Type 2. DUH! Why? Because they’re obese! Same thing with babies and children. They should not be fed everything they want to eat because it makes them happy. It should be limited and they should be playing outside and having fun. Why are these poor children and teens obese?! That’s child abuse! And guess what, if obesity is what’s the main cause of Type 2 Diabetes in older people, it’ll probably be an issue for teens and younger children as well. To know that children are already developing prediabetes is disgusting to me.

I guess I give people too much credit in the common sense area and they have to read it for themselves or from a study to know it to be true. I, on the other hand, want to smack a lot of them upside the head. People don’t realize how disgusting it is to die from diabetic complications. They really don’t. But think about it. If you read my blogs and read my explanations of how the body works, you’ll see that since diabetes is a multi-organ disease, it’s going to rip through each organ one-by-one. Usually, it’s your kidneys, then it’s neuropathy which leads to sores on your body, losing feeling in your limbs, all while having to urinate and eventually vomit, feeling exhausted and so thirsty you could drink a lake. If you’re lucky, you might just die of one massive heart attack or stroke. I can’t even continue…

What can I do to make you see the light?! I’m going to start giving workshops and talking about it. I have to. I can’t sit here an watch people drown in their own ignorance and bodily fluids. Something must be done and if no one else is reaching out, I will.

Contact me with any questions, comments or concerns. If you would like me to talk about Diabetes at your place of work, community center or family meeting, I’m at your service.

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March 18, 2011 · 7:15 pm

Pay Attention!

I never realized the impact of diabetes on my thoughts until I attended a tweet chat with #dsma or the Diabetes Social Media Advocates. They began asking deep questions like, “Who do you take care of yourself for?” Many said they do it for friends, family members and spouses or significant others. I went out on a far off limb and said, “I do it for myself and for my unborn children. I have met various peers who have lost their parent to diabetes complications.” I don’t want to be THAT parent, and I had a few people agree with me on the thought.

Personally, I don’t want to think that I’m not going to see my kids grow up and have their own children. It’s a scary thought that I never quite processed before. I want to see my grandchildren, that is, if I ever have children of my own. *Side note* Although I’ve never been pregnant, I will be talking about diabetes during pregnancy, both with Type 1, 2 and gestational diabetes.

Now, you might ask, do you think of that each time you check yourself or take insulin? No, I don’t. But when do you ever think of the bad stuff when it’s all going good? You don’t. I think about it when I get angry about certain issues I have. For example, when you count carbs, take your insulin and do everything right, just to have your blood glucose still high, that’s when I think, I have no control over this! Who says I’ll survive when my body isn’t reacting the way I want it to?!

No one can possibly save me from this whole ordeal if it’s not myself. My mind, at this point, is the master of my body and my method of survival. It’s all in my head. Isn’t that strange? It’s strange that as diabetics, we have to learn how our bodies work, what it’s trying to tell us and what we should do to fix it.

Take for example, if I feel a headache coming on, I know there’s a chance my blood sugar is high. Oddly enough, along with that, I can feel dryness in my eyes, which is another way I know my blood sugar’s high. These two symptoms are due to dehydration. When blood sugar goes up, urination increases, releasing fluids from the system, increasing thirst, exhaustion and headaches. See how that works? I know what I did wrong, what my body is lacking and how to fix it.

If I feel this, I know, “Check blood sugar right away!” and it honestly sucks when I get a headache and find out my blood sugar is normal. Why? Because I can’t do anything to fix it unless it involves other medication.

I’m lucky I pay attention. That’s the issue. People don’t pay enough attention to what their bodies are doing or saying to them. As diabetics, we urinate a ton, no lie. But if you go more frequently than necessary, something’s up.

So my advice for this week, diabetic or not, is PAY ATTENTION! There are things your body reacts to that you don’t even know about. Watch it before it’s too late to actually do something about it, get sick or just plain feel bad.

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March 12, 2011 · 7:34 pm

Reality Check: How long is forever?

Today I decided to take a day off. I’m always doing something, always going somewhere, but today, I wanted to spend time at home, clean and go grocery shopping. It’s the simple things in life sometimes that make the rest worthwhile, right? It could also be that I needed a mental health day because yesterday I was so distracted and all over the place.

I walked into the fiscal department at work yesterday only to see Tish Parker in her corner. Tish and I met at our new employee orientation and since then she makes the effort to occasionally stop by my closet of an office to say hi, I return the gesture. I found out that she, too, is a writer although of the fictitious genre. When I walked in, she said hi, always greeting me with a beautiful smile and called me over. She pointed to my pump and asked what it was. Apparently her sister-in-law is also diabetic and uses a pump but she didn’t put two and two together until I explained it to her. She thought it was an MP3 player of some sort and I said, well, at least you didn’t think it was a throwback and call it a pager.

I started explaining how the pump is used and how it works to a point when she asked, “So it’s forever?” And when she said that, I didn’t know how to take it and said, “Well, I change it every three days, but yes, I’m most likely going to have to use it forever.” Which put my mind into a whirlwind. Forever.

Or until there’s a cure, but at this point, I feel that I will not live to see one. The fact of the matter is, I will be connected to this contraption for the rest of my life, something I didn’t fully wrap my head around until she said it. I knew I would have to take shots forever, that was easy to come by, yet thinking about it now, the pump does feel temporary although it isn’t. It’s forever.

It took me back to the day that I found out I was actually diabetic. My mom called me over to check my blood sugar, which at the time, I didn’t understand. I knew I had to do it because the doctors said so, but the significance behind it, I didn’t quite comprehend yet. We were about to have dinner when my mom pricked my pointer finger to squeeze out some blood. “Mom,” I said looking up at her, “am I going to have to do this for the rest of my life?” I think the question broke her heart.

What did that mean? FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. As a grew up, I looked into what the rest of my life was going to be like. It went something like this: Over time you will lose your eyesight, be at risk for cardiac problems, get amputations and die. Fun, huh? Well, everyone dies, right? I already knew that part. But dying prematurely is what gets everyone. As a diabetic, five years is already cut off my life span. So if I was going to live until 100, I’d die at 95. That’s cool. I’ll take it.

The issue is that throughout my younger years, no one told me straight out what being diabetic meant. No one explained the repercussions, the decisions I’d have to make, the consequences. It was just, “If you don’t stop…” or “If you don’t cut back…” Doctors didn’t try to make living with the disorder easier, they were just trying to make me stop living.

Now it’s, “If you don’t control…” or “If you don’t lower your A1c…” The same tactics that are used today were used with me back then, as a child. Awful. They scared me into being healthy, they didn’t teach me how it all worked. They were passing down the stresses of having a diabetic child to my parents who thought they had done something wrong. They didn’t try to expand on my forever, they scared me into thinking about forever and living a terrible, terrible life of pain agony and losing my legs. It was also the 90s. I’d like to think times have changed.

But yes, to my dismay, I’m going to be connected to this little purple machine for the rest of my life. At this point, I can only think of having something smaller but never not having anything at all. I see it as a benefit. We’ve transitioned from a pump that you had to carry around in a backpack to a little thing that looks like a pager. Brilliant. Let’s see where life leads us next. What does your FOREVER look like?

 

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March 1, 2011 · 5:39 pm

If I wasn’t diabetic…

If I wasn’t diabetic (Type 1, that is), I would probably weigh about 300 pounds. I’m not kidding.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I would probably love eating chocolate a lot more than I do now. Right now, I just think about it a lot, but don’t eat it. So it goes for many, many other foods.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I would probably not even THINK about working out. Actually, maybe I would.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t have to worry about waking up with the shakes in the middle of the night.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t know what wanting to pass out felt like.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I would know much less about how my body works.

If I wasn’t diabetic, Type 1, I’d probably be Type 2 by now.

If I wasn’t diabetic, a part of me thinks I’d work out a lot more and skip out on a few meals without worrying about repercussions. But I can always do that now, right?

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t have to worry about having a job with health insurance.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t have won my boyfriend over. He says that he liked me more because of the control and knowledge I had about the disorder my body carries. I wouldn’t be different if I wasn’t diabetic.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I would have chosen to travel the world instead of staying in one place.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I would have joined something like the Peace Corps, if not the Peace Corps.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t have to worry about getting yelled at by my doctors.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t always be lectured by my doctor.

If I wasn’t diabetic, my life would not be run by numbers.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t have knowledge about technology, medicine, health or a variety of other topics that are affecting people all around me all the time.

If I wasn’t diabetic, Kikisbetes.com wouldn’t exist, nor would @kikisbetes.

If I wasn’t diabetic, learning about new exercise moves would not be a priority.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t have to always count carbs.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I would be eating more tortillas.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t exactly worry about how much grasa actually went into my food.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I would be eating a lot more pan dulce, drinking Jarritos, scarfing down chicharrones and drinking atole every weekend.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t find a need to inform people of the health issues that may hinder them in the future.

If I wasn’t diabetic, there would be no looking up carbs in beer and worrying about “how to drink.”

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t have to wear the Medic Alert bracelet that you see in the photo above.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t have to worry about my process of having children.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t have to worry about seeing six to seven different doctors in a year.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t have to worry about medical bills, keeping up on my supplies for medication and making sure to see the doctor every three months.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t have to worry about losing my feet or my sight.

If I wasn’t diabetic, my motivation would be writing and writing only.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t be one of the five percent of people diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t completely collapse every time I get a simple cold.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t have as many writing opportunities as I do now.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I would be a little more normal.

If I wasn’t diabetic, I wouldn’t always have to convince myself that diabetes isn’t a limitation.

If I wasn’t diabetic, though, I don’t think I would be me. All of these little things that have shaped me over the years have kept me sane, healthy and alive. Every day, diabetes is being less of a limitation for me. I know there are ways to do all the things I’ve ever wanted to do and just like the next person who doesn’t have diabetes, I’m being limited by much more than just having this disease.

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