Do you know I forget? I really do. Even though I was raised in a home literally surrounded by this disease (mother, neighbors, friends) sometimes I don’t even think about it. Most days it doesn’t even occur to me that I am a diabetic. But I am. Sometimes people ask me if I am “the good kind” or “the bad kind”. I always want to scream when I hear that. There is NO good kind. Some people are even so helpful as to suggest “oh, type 2? Well THAT can be fixed by diet and exercise.” (FUCK THEM—they mean *I* did this to myself) Although, I feel it important to note that if I don’t eat—I am not diabetic. I don’t mean if I only eat healthily—I mean No Fucking Food. But the second a piece of anything with any caloric content whatsoever (lettuce, chocolate, popcorn, beef, whatever) my body (without medication) throws the sugar into my blood and my body cannot use it. This causes my body to send panicked signals to my brain saying “HELP, BITCH—WE ARE STARVING HERE—THERE IS NO FUEL IN OUR BODY—WTF ARE YOU DOING UP THERE?!?!” Brain replies, “DAMN BODY—GIVE US A FEW SECONDS HERE, I’M TELLING THIS PAIN IN THE ASS TO EAT!” The body can’t figure out why the fuck it feels like shit and why it is HUNGRY all of the time—even when it is so full there is physical pain. With proper medication my body works just fine, food turns into sugar, sugar fuels my body, food is an afterthought not an all consuming IMMEDIATE NEED, and I go through life happily forgetting.
Until I do something stupid like forgetting to eat. Now, if you read that sentence and thought—who the fuck has ever forgotten to eat?!?! Get tested for diabetes. But given that my sugars are under control believe it or not; sometimes that shit happens and I forget to eat. Or sometimes my pancreas and/or liver gets all excited and spits out extra insulin and combining that with my medications make me “go low”. The term LOW was something I learned as early as age 4 and I knew I had to put sugar into my mother, my neighbor, or my friend before they went SO low they would end up in the hospital. What I NEVER understood until I was a diagnosed diabetic almost 25 years later and went through my first low was how much the idea of any food at all makes you want to vomit. Or how you are soaked through with so much sweat you have to shower and change your clothes when it’s all over. Or lastly, how incredibly weak and sick you feel , standing up is almost impossible, and the nausea makes you want to die.
(Hopefully) You have all seen those stupid flyers in doctors’ offices telling you the symptoms of potential diabetes. Below is not my attempt to recreate that list (thirsty, lots of urination, etc.) nor give you any personal medical advice; it is however shit I noticed a HUGE difference in and wished I had been treated at the very young age of 13 when I couldn’t stop eating and everyone treated me as a leper.
*MY* Warning Signs of Diabetes
- NEVER FORGETTING FOOD – if you cannot stop thinking of food. I mean—never forgetting a meal ever. Feeling hungry while *knowing* in your rational mind and aching belly that you are full.
- LOOK LIKE A DAMN CHICKEN – you know what I mean; big torso—scrawny legs. Definitive belly? Come on, if you have a big belly and widdle iddy biddy scrawny legs. Yup, that is a big ass sign of “the diabetes”. It is a fun little genetic trick that allows us folk to still run from predators by having normal sized legs and arms and a fat belly to live in feast and famine. However, since our running away from predators AND famine “time” has been limited here in the first world—this has just led to us feeling hungrier, getting bigger bellies, and feeling worse and worse.
Squished Together 