Diabetes Denial

Yesterday I had diabetes denial.  I took a little taste of Adam’s French toast at breakfast and assumed it wouldn’t have an impact on my blood sugar.  I guessed it couldn’t have been more than five grams of carb.  That was all I ate until around 2 p.m. when I had some yogurt (7 grams of carb) with two tablespoons of almond butter mixed in.  That yogurt and almond butter meal is something I eat almost daily.  It makes me very full and has almost no effect on my blood sugar.  It’s always a sure thing.  The only problem is that diabetes is never a sure thing.  

Immediately after eating I began to feel sleepy.  Within a few minutes I started to feel like I couldn’t keep my eyes open.  Adam was sitting on my lap.  “Let’s go to the couch and watch TV,” I said.  I didn’t feel like I could stay alert enough to take care of him.  To me, that’s about as scary as it gets.  I wasn’t losing consciousness, but I was not all there.  

I lay down on the couch with Adam on my legs.  I told him he should take a nap with me.  (He doesn’t say take a nap, he says “I’m a nap” when he tries to take one.)  He was clearly not a nap at that moment.  He was all energy and I felt like there were weights on my eyelids. But this wasn’t the ordinary exhaustion of a busy mother.  This was the fog of high blood sugar.  I knew it, but I was too tired to care.  I was too tired to do anything about it.   

As I rested, part of my mind was telling me to check my blood sugar.  Another part explained that I had eaten the same thing I always eat, so there was nothing to worry about.  I was just really tired.  Classic diabetes denial.  Yet another part was lecturing about LADA and the gradual death of my beta cells.   

Maybe today was the day they totally pooped out.  No more honeymoon.  No more being able to tolerate 10 grams of carb mixed with fat without a bolus. Type 1 diabetes.  The real thing.  Dead and useless beta cells.  

It took me about an hour to come out of the fog.  Adam was climbing on and off the couch, watching TV and playing beside me. I didn’t get up to check my blood sugar.  I could feel it coming down.  I just know the feeling.  It’s like coming out of a dream.  

The more alert I became, the more aware I became that Adam had emptied an entire package of new diapers and placed them all around my body.  It wasn’t that I hadn’t known it was happening as it happened.  I just couldn’t react to it with the giggles it deserved until the dream was over.  

Jessica Apple

Jessica Apple grew up in Houston. She studied Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, and completed an MA in the same field at the Hebrew University. She began to write and publish short stories while a student, and has continued to write essays and fiction while raising her three sons (and many pets).

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Jessica Apple

Jessica Apple grew up in Houston. She studied Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan, and completed an MA in the same field at the Hebrew University. She began to write and publish short stories while a student, and continues to write essays and fiction while raising her three sons (and many pets). Jessica’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Financial Times Magazine, The Southern Review, The Bellevue Literary Review, Tablet Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the diabetes correspondent for The Faster Times. In 2009 she and her husband, both type 1 diabetics, founded A Sweet Life, where she serves as editor-in-chief. Jessica loves spending time with her sons, cooking with her husband, playing with her cats, reading, biking, drinking coffee, and whenever possible, taking a nap. Follow Jessica on Twitter (@jessapple)