Anniversaries

19 years.

8 years.

One is the length of my life as a married man. One is the length of my life as a diabetic. I'm 32, so no, I did not get married when I was 13.

On Feb 17, 1991 my parents took me to the hospital after two weeks of on-again off-again vomiting, extreme weightloss (I think I was down to either 58 or 68 lbs as a 13 yr old boy), and constant thirst. Can you connect the dots? Well we didn't, but my parents knew something wasn't right, and finally took me to the ER that Sunday night. It took the doctors about 5 minutes to determine the problem; they hadn't even admitted me to a room yet before I was diagnosed.

Now my memory is not the best, and the snippets I remember are usually unusual (sounds like a double negative, but I think it's ok). I remember lying down in the backseat of the car and being carried into the hospital by my dad. I remember him asking me during our second evening in the hospital, "Are you asking 'Why me'?". And I remember saying no...because I wasn't asking that.

The doctors said that had my parents not taken me to the hospital that night, I would have gone into coma.

Of course, the dr also said there could be a cure for diabetes within 5 years. I think he missed his 1996 deadline.

My best friend told everyone at school that I had foamed from the mouth. Oddly I didn't mind the rumor.

Other memories of my early diabetic years:

- my AccuChek II. It took two minutes to get a reading, and that was only after having to practically cut off half my finger to give it enough blood. (NOTE: I tried googling for a photo of one for this post, but I couldn't find one. Amazing.)

- the shot chart, starring a young semi-nude child and giving you all the shot location options. I think that it was taped to the back of one of our kitchen pantry doors until my mom moved out of that house in 2005.

- spending an hour faking my blood sugar charts just so I wouldn't "get in trouble" by my dr.

Lots more, but 19 years later, they don't stand out so much. I'm thankful to God that I have no real complictions, dispite multiple episodes of laziness in my care. My focus now is on living a long long life to see my 3 yr old daughter grow up.


And yes, I also just celebrated 8 years of marriage. I bring this up in a diabetes context because we went to a very nice restaurant. And it seems that no matter what I order at these pricey dinners (in this case a salad and filet), it always jacks my sugars. I have no idea why, but it appens every time I go to a restaurant where entrees average more than $30.


So here's to 50 more years of both. And maybe my dr just forgot to add the 0 after the 5.

cheers...matt


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