I’m sitting here now, tears running down my cheeks, hand shaking too much to give myself the vital injection of insulin I need to keep me alive, trying to calm myself down enough to actually do this. I know this is what I need, and always have done. I know that if I don’t take it, my cells will starve from lack of sugar, I will begin to break down fat and muscle in my body in order to get the energy I can’t take from my bloodstream. I know that the reason I have this chronic illness is because, for some unknown reason, my immune system decided to go into overdrive and wipe out the insulin producing beta cells of my pancreas. I know that this is never going to leave me be – and that is what hurts the most.

Everyday I remember what life was like without diabetes. I lived 14 years and 238 days without ever seeing a meter, or a cartridge of insulin. I knew what diabetes was, I knew there were two main types, I knew it wasn’t just an ‘old persons’ disease’. But when someone said diabetes I certainly didn’t picture this. Not how I am right now. Until you have to do this, every day, it’s not possible to understand. Until you have to watch a meter count down and show you a 20.8mmol/l or a 2.9mmol/l for you or somebody you love, it’s impossible to imagine the profound effect that seeing these numbers has on a person.

It’s only really when you sit down and prick your finger for the tenth time that day and still can’t get an in range number that you realise. This is forever. However many times you procrastinate over injecting the liquid that keeps you alive – but could send you into shock – it’s not going to go away.

———-

It’s later now. I’m not in tears anymore. I overestimated earlier with my insulin. I gave myself 12.5 units of novorapid to cover for 123 grams of carbohydrate and a blood glucose level of 8.3. And now I am struggling with hypoglycaemia, 2 hours and 47 minutes after giving my insulin injection. Other than this, my meter has shown me several numbers that are higher than I like today. I had a fasting level of 8.3, before lunch I was 14.0 and before dinner it was 13.1. In mg/dl, that is levels of 150, 252 and 236. Those aren’t my favourite numbers in the world, but I’ll live with them, because I have to.

However scared I am of hypoglycaemia and however much having a seizure or passing out sends shivers through every bone of my body, I still do this. Because the things that could happen if I don’t are too terrifying to contemplate.

So many of us have to live with these swings. Forever. And we will. We will still go out with friends, we will still run. We will still laugh and we will still have a good time. We still make mistakes and I’ll keep doing stupid things. We still live. I will really live.

I’m tired of checking my blood sugar and finding it to be 2.9. or 3.2. or 3.4. and not feeling it.

I’m tired of shots. I had 8 the other day.

I’m tired of eating.

I’m tired of being hungry all the damn time.

I’m tired of being asked what’s wrong as I shake my way to a chair, or just slump down on the floor during a reaction.

I’m tired of <b>everything</b> being so bloody hard. Having to think my way around every simple thing I do before I do it. If I’m high – when am I next going to see a bathroom? When I’m low – when am I next going to see some sugar? When I’m normal – how long can I stay this way before I have another low or high?

I’m sick as well, haven’t been feeling quite right since my flu jab on Wednesday. Shaking, hot flushes and cold shivers, feeling like I’m gonna throw up, not feeling like eating, throat’s been killing me.

And I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want any of it. I want diabetes to DIE in a hole somewhere. I want to go back a year. I want diabetes never to have existed. If diabetes didn’t exist my grandad would probably still be here today, and the first six months of this year wouldn’t have been spend watching him have strokes and heart attacks, and his leg wouldn’t have got like it did. All this, before I’d even experienced diabetes firsthand. Maybe even my GREAT grandad would still be here today. Maybe I’ll still be here in 80 years if we find a cure. If we don’t, I doubt I’ll make it 60. I might not even make it 50, or 40. I don’t know.

I want to be a mother, and a wife, and have a job, and make people have better lives. I don’t know if I could trust myself to do any of that at the moment. I want my kids to look up to me, not think of me as the one who gave them a disease that means they can’t live how they want. Hell, I don’t want to think of myself as that person.

I just want a DAY where I don’t have to take insulin, or check my sugar. Please give me ONE DAY.

Today, as I gave myself 5 units to cover excessive rice crispy eating I realised I don’t even notice anymore.

I put the needle on, give myself my insulin. It’s as automatic as getting out of bed in the morning.

I check my blood sugar when I get out of bed, to me it’s like getting dressed.

And that was when I realised. For the first couple of weeks after diagnosis, all my dreams were diabetes free. Now I wake up and even in my dream I was checking my blood sugar, I was having lows, I was having highs.

THAT’S how I know it’s my normal now.

blarghhhhh to diabetes. BLARGH!

 today we were running a stall do raise money for the youth club in my village. “Right.” I said to myself this morning. “The past few days I’ve been having 6 units to cover my breakfast, and then running high 2 hours after… I don’t wanna go low today, so I’ll stick to 6 instead of upping it to 7.” So I have a big-ish breakfast, have 6 units, go to our stall, hang around for bit with Laura. It gets to like 10.30. hm. I need to do a post-breakfast…. I need to wash my hands…. So I had to walk back to Laura’s to wash my hands in preparation. Test. 4.9. ouch. it’s “think like a pancreas” all over again. 4.9. Not low, but a bit iffy for a post-meal. But I felt so bad about asking Laura’s mum for some long lasting carbs that I just treated it like a minor low and had half a glucose tab. yes. stupid, I know. So I finally got back to our stall. “What was it Emma?” “four point nine.” “FOUR POINT NINE!?” mum says.

it’s not like 4.9’s even that low. it’s not even LOW. damnit. so. crisps for me. another glucose tablet for me. a refresher bar for me. yum! an hour after the previous reading “WHAAT? I’m 4.8 now!” More food. Two hours after lunch, exactly the same problem. Ate Jaffa Cakes- 12.0. WHAT? great. Me and Laura went for a sprint around the field. A while later. I couldn’t see. As in my eyes were stinging and blurry and HORRID. I’d gone up to 12.2. plergh. blargh. I hate diabetes. It stinks. I wish I didn’t have to live my teenage years with this restrictive force weighing upon everything I want to do. Before diagnosis on a Friday at the youth club I was always so hungry. One day me and Lozzie ate a whole big packet of Jaffa Cakes and I had a Kinder Bueno. sigh. good old days.

I wish I could have one day without this pushing me down.

On the other hand A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MATT!

So, what’s it LIKE having diabetes?

People seem to really want to know, but the answer is that nobody ever could until they’ve tried it. And it’s not just about the cringing as you press the button to release the lancet, and the tingly pain as you try to squeeze more blood out of your fingers, calloused already from many years of playing the guitar, and many weeks of blood testing, or the faint pop as you push the needle into your thigh, or your tummy. The sharp noise you make as you suck in the air through your teeth when you hit a nerve. Someone without diabetes could inject themselves with saline, could test their blood as many times as they want, but they still don’t know what it’s like. They don’t know what it feels like to go out with friends to eat and for them to look away as you jab yourself. But still HAVE to do it.

They just don’t know the five seconds that drags on seeming like hours, as you wait for the verdict of your blood result. Should I not have had that last piece of pizza? They don’t know the headache that comes on when you’re high, the feeling of a ton of bricks inside your forehead, dragging it down further and further. Or the huge thirst, the necessity to down pints and pints of water.

Last night I had two friends over. We had a great time, but it had never clicked that other people didn’t know how it felt to have high blood sugar. They were shocked that as we were chatting at 2 o’clock in the morning my blood sugar was about 13, and I had to pee every 15 minutes. They’d never felt that. And as we chatted I drunk water, I felt better. I managed to get down to 11 before going to sleep. But it doesn’t even matter. What matters is that I have to do it and everyone around me has to live with it too. I have to live with it, my family have to live with it, my friends now also have to live with it. And I don’t care if people turn away when I pierce my skin, to inject the insulin that stops me being sick. I’m not sick when I have my insulin. I’m not ill. I’m just a normal person, who has to take a  medication, to keep their levels of a certain hormone up. What’s different about my insulin and Ellie’s iron tablets? Nothing.

 My meter doesn’t read “HI” anymore. That’s what it did when I was admitted to the children’s ward on 06-07-07. The day before yesterday all my results were between 4 and 10. That’s a big acheivement for me.

I was reading Kerri’s blog about this being our normal now and it made me think about how it’s not just “our normal”. Everybody around us has to accept it as normal as well. I’m so glad that most of my friends, with the exception of a couple, really get it. I can still do everything I used to so. I can still laugh about Ellie thinking Per Una is a type of fish. “WAIT, NO, THAT’S A PIRANA!” I can still eat pizza. My friends can still bring me back chocolate from France. The only difference is that the packet now says “sans sucre”. I can still laugh at me and Sophie singing Baby Got Back on singstar. We can still take weird pictures of ourselves on my and Ellie’s camera. We can still dissect Ferrous Sulphate tablets.

And in the pictures you could never tell that one of us has diabetes.

drunk.

on pizza.

BG’s like 20 something by now.

ellie and sophhhhster’s round. (Y)

I’m bored out of my mind ;]

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
1. Emm
2. Second Mate Jim
3. Gingerr

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. My hands. ‘cept they’re very holey and also bleedy and sore from dryness and my itching.
2. My eyes.
3. My wonderfully bitten nails.

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU DON’T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1. My arms.
2. The wavy-ness of my hair.
3. My smile when my hair’s tied back. ickk.

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
1. Scottish.
2. French.
3. English.

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
1. Getting lost.
2. Losing somebody else so special to me.
3. Not being in control of diabetes.

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
1. Insulin.
2. Testing kit.
3. Phone.

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
1. A big blue fleece.
2. A medic alert bracelet.
3. Holey jeans.

THREE OF YOUR FAVOURITE MUSICALS:
1. Musicals smell.
2. Well, most of the time.
3. God, my sister’s put me through “high school musical” too many times.

THREE OF YOUR [current] FAVOURITE SONGS:
1. Rootless Tree – Damien Rice (yeah, I have a lot of anger inside me)
2. Take Me Away – Plain White T’s
3. Iris – The Goo Goo Dolls

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP:
1. Love.
2. Chatter about nothing, or serious talk about something, equally easily.
3. Happiness.

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS THAT YOU FIND ATTRACTIVE:
1. Longish hair. not ridiculously long. y’know. nice long.
2. Confidence.
3. Harrie. Dammit I miss you so much Harriett. ]:

THREE OF YOUR FAVOURITE HOBBIES:
1. Internet.
2. Towwwwwwwning.
3. Eating.

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
1. Eat a JAM DOUGHNUT. oh, how much I want a damn doughnut.
2. Get a CGMS. One of those real time ones. ah, to look down and check my blood sugar.
3. HUG HARRIE. I love you Harrie.

THREE CAREERS YOU’RE CONSIDERING:
1. Psychologist.
2. Psychiatrist.
3. Psychopath.

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
1. Italy.
2. USA.
3. Somewhere warm and quiet with a nice warm sea. Where I can sit and read and write and do nice stuff like that.

THREE KIDS NAMES YOU LIKE:
1. Harriet.
2. Lucy.
3. Jimmy.

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
1. Have children. Well not necessarily out of myself. But y’know. Raise children. I think I’d like to adopt.
2. Lose my unnecessary paranoia.
3. Fall in love.

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A CHICK:
1. I love chick flicks. And crappy teenage novels. And equally crappy adult novels.
2. I like to look nice.
3. I cry at the drop of a hat. No, seriously, I cry daily, at least. Big tears.

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A BOY:
1. I like to wear my hair fairly short.
2. I never seem to make an effort to look good. Make-up? NAHHH.
3. I can be quite confrontational.

THREE CELEB CRUSHES:
1. I don’t have a crush.
2. On any.
3. Celebs.

In other news:
My grandma’s hysterectomy seemed to work. They think the cancer was only stage 1, and hasn’t spread anywhere else. So she’s still in a bit of a bad way after the op. but she’s a lot better.
Alie, Laura and Harrie are back from the watersports trip. Yeah, the one I was supposed to go on. *sigh* I’ve sent Harrie a text. But she hasn’t replied. As you may have guessed, I miss Harrie like crazy.
I met my grandpa and my sister in the library today. I was with my little brother, so there were 5 people in the library. I was one, and 3 of the others were related to me.
I earned £8.00 today doing an hour or so of typing for Constable Vat Consultancy.
I miss Harrie big time.
Sigh.
Comment if you read this. I don’t care what you say, please comment ;]

so. today. was supposed to be going on a trip with school, to do watersports. for 6 hours a day, for seven days. yeah. that was NEVER gonna happen in my current state! (lets just say for the last six months I had uncontrolled diabetes I lost a couple of pounds a day. every day. even though I was eating around three times [at least] more than usual. this was mostly muscle, therefore I am now a puny, pathetic little weakling [; but seriously. no way!) so instead, I got the money back from the insurance and decided to spend this week actually trying out some normal teenager typed things (don’t worry, no drink or drugs… apart from insulin, and painkillers, duh) just like going to the cinema, into town, whateverrr. so today I went to the cinema to see Harry Potter (for the second time – the film wasn’t the point for me!!!) with Abby and Ellie. the only problem was, the film started at 13.45. riggght over when I’d usually eat lunch. so we decided to meet up beforehand and have lunch in town. so I had breakfast at 10.00 and got into town for meeting at 12.10. everything’s going fine, checked my sugar on the bus and it was 7.9. great number for me, I was very chuffed as it meant I’d got my breakfast just right. we wandered around for 20 mins or so checking the cafe possibilities, and finally settled on where we wanted to go. so it had been about 2.5 hours since breakfast. I expected to be around 7 mmol/l by this point. got food, sat down, checked sugar. “THREE POINT EIGHT!!!!” Abby: “isn’t that kinda low.” Me: “nahhh I’ll be fiine.” damnnn. 3.8. what did I do to make it 3.8. why didn’t I FEEL 3.8??

now, I know 3.8 isn’t that bad. but usually my hands are shaking at 5. usually I have TOO MUCH hypoglycaemic awareness. I should feel a 3.8. the lowest I’ve ever been (since I got D I mean, I’ve been pretty low before that, but that’s not related) is 4.3.

anywayy. I ate a glucose tablet, to be on the safe side, I had my lunch, I had my NovoRapid. I went to the cinema, I STUFFED my face with popcorn, without bolusing any extra. check half an hour afterwards. 7.7. these are great numbers and all, but it’s NOT RIGHT that I should be having them whilst stuffing my face and sitting still for 3 hours! I’m 6.0 now. this just isn’t right. on the bright side, it could be my first day below 10 all day!!!

life in general is not great. my grandma has to go into hospital for cancer treatment on the 16th. hoping everything goes okay with that. 

I promise to post more often in the future.

06-07-07 – Diagnosed with Type One diabetes, after ‘textbook symptoms’ (I lost a stone and a half in six months ¬_¬) and going to have it checked out.

08-07-07 – No complications or DKA, out of hospital!!!

09-07-07 – In school again, for half days.

11-07-07 – Switched to basal/bolus, giving Lantus at nine PM and NovoRapid before each meal.

16-07-07 – First full day back at school!

20-07-07 – Slept round Aliee’s! (first sleepover since diabetes hit and no major problems.)

21-07-07 – Today –  Best sugar day so far (Y). Still not in my target range, but I’M GETTING CLOSE! Plus the Harry Potter book makes a darned good day if I may say so. Though I haven’t finished it yett. And my amazing broher bought me no added sugar cadburys for my “low sugar diet”. yummm. Anyway, hopefully I’ll have something more exciting to say soon, please leave me a comment if you read this, I don’t have much going on at the moment and it’ll give me something to read. [: