When Your Pancreas Sabotages Your Comeback

When Your Pancreas Sabotages Your Comeback

This is your year. Karma should be firmly by your side after the hole you just climbed out of. Right?

One must never grow complacent, even during a comeback.

Despite my excitement for the year ahead; the happiness of living, planning, and playing, I couldn’t shake this sense of exhaustion that would creep over me like a warm cloud of Netflix-temptation over the past few months.

I chocked it up to stress. Lord knows that’s a logical theory.

But then other strange symptoms manifested.

On Friday, I woke up and the world was blurry. Street signs no longer had meaning. It added up, but didn’t add up. So I had my blood drawn.

On Tuesday, I threw a small tantrum when the results came back.

On Wednesday, I accepted and took action.

I researched for three hours and crafted a list of labs, medications, and options.

I stopped at CVS and picked up a blood glucose monitor and ketone strips.

I called an optometrist and got in on a cancellation, investing $300 in the opportunity to read street signs again soon.

I dropped into my doctor’s office, where two messages had yet to be returned, and demanded an appointment.

I have Type 1 Diabetes. At 30 years old. WTF?

Less than 1/2 a percent of Americans have Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disorder where my body eventually won an ill-conceived war against my pancreas, which tapped out and stopped producing insulin.

Thanks, body. Great effort.

Today, I am swapping carbs for insulin as my drug of choice and focusing on silver linings.

Regardless of how irritating reliance on these cute little insulin “pens” is, I woke up this morning. I played with my kids. I went for a run. And then I doodled while appreciating a rare and loud winter thunder storm. Oh, and I didn’t have to answer to anyone but myself.

Life is pretty damn good, diabetes and all.

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